PlazaJapan Prices

[cteno4]

just noticed that plazajapan's prices are really close to hobby search (w/in a couple of percent) on most items. either they are now discounting some of they just have not changed the dollar prices in a long time when the dollar was stronger. i seem to remember plaza's prices being near retail last time i looked.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[David]

In late 2009 Plaza's pricing seemed to be in line with HS - about 10% off, though not all items followed that price policy.

 

Recently I've noticed the same thing - a lot (but not all) relisted items seem to be getting priced around the same as HS, 20% off. However unless there has been a big change in the last week, it's definitely not everything. Right now, especially for light but costly items like locomotives or 2 car powered sets, you need to actually check between HS, HW and Plaza if you need to have the lowest price possible. Plaza's item cost can be higher, while HS can have overpriced EMS on small items (I get the impression that they just don't use the smallest box size for EMS).

[cteno4]

In the past when i use to compare plaza with hs and hw when buying they were always like 5-10% over hw and hs which use to be 5-10% off list (usually 7 or 8%) so thats how i thought plaza was usually around list.

 

i just did a spot check of a few different kinds of items. few 5-7 car trains, tomytec truck set, kawai cars, etc all came out near hs current 20% off. only thing that didnt was one kawai snow plow and a single tomytec building.

 

as i said i have not followed plazas pricing for a while. they do seem to hold a dollar price for a long time even though the dollar goes up and down (mostly down this year!) so that may be part of it. its smart for plaza to keep a consistent dollar price as jun attracts a lot of us buyers a bit leary of buying overseas with exchange rates, etc and ebay/paypal give them some comfort as well as paying a consistent price in dollars.

 

hs shipping tends to be higher as their boxes tend to be bigger and heavier than hw and they also use heavy paper packing. hw usually uses mostly bubble wrap and lighter news paper. i just got 6 hogarakadou container packages (pretty tiny and no weight) but the box it came in was pretty good sized (their smallest) and its a double layer corrugated cardboard. great box and tough, but the box and packing weighed about 10x the contents...

 

now with hw matching the hs 20% off there is not a lot of price differences going on. hs does do it on some items that hw is still only doing 7% off on.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Eliphaz]

another outfit on e-bay worth looking at for track and structures is Hit-Japan ,

"make an offer" button is their game, see how low they will go!

[cteno4]

i have had success with hit japan at like 15% below their going rate. one problem is that i did this on like three small items then they didnt do much on combining the shipping (although they were all small and very cheap to ship together) so i ended up loosing out on the whole deal some... so probably better on one higher priced item to make an offer where you know the set shipping price and therefore your final deal price.

 

hitjapan has some odder stuff usually. for a while it was the only place to get the green max skiffs or tomix unpainted bicycles that were oos or not yet carried by hw and hs. they were also the last source for tomix unpainted containers.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bigford]

shipping is killer for plaza and hit $20.00 to ship a 4 car add on set

[cteno4]

thats because train sets they ship ems by default and $20 is actually on the cheap side these days for ems for a train set, hs and hw in yen its closer to $24-28.

 

plaza will ship sal if you request it, at least they use to.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[to2leo]

Jun from PlazaJ helped me get my first Japanese train set.  At that time, the prices were much closer to 20% off the retail price.  Then, the cost becomes more and more expensive to the point that I haven't visited him for a long time.  I guess now that there are more online sellers, Jun has to mark down his prices to remain competitive.

 

Hit-Japan is also an excellent alternative before the HS and HW become more competitive and lower their costs (shipping and product).