How to bid in Japanese auctions for dummies.

[Pheno]

But SMJ is oke as I read here, so I'll hop on that one. I can actually find something on that one :D

[EWS60008]

Hello people,

 

I have found another proxy bidding website for Yahoo! Auctions which is www.japanauctions.co.uk although the main currency is in Euros rather than in USD as the company is based in Dundalk, Ireland. PayPal is accepted as the main payment method alongside the Bank Transfer (I dislike this method personally and PayPal is a safer bet IMO) but you will need to add funds into your Japan Auctions account before you are allowed to place an order which JA will bid for the item on your behalf up the amount you have placed into your account or the amount you have specified. Though the requirement is that the listing you intend to bid on must have a minimum of 24 hours remaining when you place your order for the item, so no last minute sniping will work here unfortunately .

[quinntopia]

So finally concluded my first Yahoo Japan auction using Shopping Mall Japan.  The service worked quite well...I like the ease and convenience of a credit card.  Setting up and getting the credit card authorized was a little wonky, but I eventually figured it out with several emails.

 

Once I won my item, things went okay, except they were very slow.  It took me about 45 days to finally get my item after winning it. This is to be expected with SMJ's service as they hold everything in Japan and then ship it in bulk (at least to the US) to save on shipping costs.  Once it arrives in the US, they ship the package to you from their location in the US and you pay another shipping service (for USPS this time).

 

All in all, here's a rough break down of the total costs:

 

$70 - cost of item in USD from Japan (i.e. my 'winning bid'). (about 6000 yen)

$23 - Internal ship. This, I believe is the cost of the shipping from Japan to the US (1930 yen).  Not sure where the cost of shipping from the Seller to SMJ's Japan location is found, perhaps its included in this fee or in the auction itself.

$12 SMJ's commission

$2.50 - Wire fee.  Not sure what its for.

$11 - Shipping in the US (from their office here in the states to my home).

 

All up, it ran around $120.  Now, for a $70 item, that might be seen as a pretty hefty mark up.  However, like I said, it was a large (though light) item, so I'm sure that factored into some of the shipping costs.

[Bernard]

Quinn - Thanks for the additional breakdown on your item. It show the possible additional costs you might incur and might give a person second thoughts before bidding.

[quinntopia]

Thanks Bernard, hopefully this information helps.  It was neither fast nor cheap, but it did work.

[ToniBabelony]

Okay, I've just started bidding on a set of MicroAce Sangi RR locmotives I need for my future layout (and because I really like those small private RR engines). I shouldn't have done that, but hey, they were just there waiting for me! Let's hope I win this one as I really don't have any useful electric engines...

[ToniBabelony]

Well, I got outbid, but I've settled for two ED17's one ED17-2 and an ED17-19. Two different generations of MicroAce with about 7-8 years development in between (or not)... I hope there aren't many differences between both of 'em and that they are able to negotiate mini curves. :P

[nightshade]

gonna try to bid for narita express and maybe a shinkansen 0

lucky do my wife has yahoo (japan) and can ship to my inlaws

(can always get it later from them :)  )

[rpierce000]

I would like to point out that BT Trains will handle the bidding and shipping for you for a 20% fee if you are a bit concerned about handling it yourself. We charge 20% above what it costs AT OUR WAREHOUSE in Japan, then $3-10, depending on size, $3 for an engine, $7 for a bookcase train, $10 for something like a Tomix Farewell set, to bring it across the Pacific on our bulk boxes and USPS or UPS to you.

 

We have a bunch of customers doing this already so we are pretty good at it. All you need to do is send an email to auction@bttrains.com with the Yahoo! Japan URL for what you wish to acquire and the highest bid in yen that you are willing to pay. To ESTIMATE what it will cost in your hands, multiply the number of yen you are bidding by .021 and you will be close.

 

For example we just bought a discountinued EF66 for a customer. Final auction price 4000yen, price at our warehouse 5050yen (shipping and bank transfer). Price with our markup, 6060yen. $3 (small item) across the pacific. Final price to the customer $84.89 plus shipping to him, but he has us hold until we have 4-5 items so shipping to him USPS is inexpensive. The .021 method would have set his price at $84, so you can see how close it is. It gets farther off if you bid on things OVER 10,000yen because shipping and bank transfer become less of the price.

 

If you have questions or would like to try it out, auction@bttrains.com. Please do NOT bid on things that have less than a day left on them or less than two on a Friday. Our people in Japan take the weekend off and MIGHT miss your bid.

 

Bob

BT Trains

bob@bttrains.com

[quinntopia]

I would like to point out that BT Trains will handle the bidding and shipping for you for a 20% fee if you are a bit concerned about handling it yourself. We charge 20% above what it costs AT OUR WAREHOUSE in Japan, then $3-10, depending on size, $3 for an engine, $7 for a bookcase train, $10 for something like a Tomix Farewell set, to bring it across the Pacific on our bulk boxes and USPS or UPS to you.

 

We have a bunch of customers doing this already so we are pretty good at it. All you need to do is send an email to auction@bttrains.com with the Yahoo! Japan URL for what you wish to acquire and the highest bid in yen that you are willing to pay. To ESTIMATE what it will cost in your hands, multiply the number of yen you are bidding by .021 and you will be close.

 

For example we just bought a discountinued EF66 for a customer. Final auction price 4000yen, price at our warehouse 5050yen (shipping and bank transfer). Price with our markup, 6060yen. $3 (small item) across the pacific. Final price to the customer $84.89 plus shipping to him, but he has us hold until we have 4-5 items so shipping to him USPS is inexpensive. The .021 method would have set his price at $84, so you can see how close it is. It gets farther off if you bid on things OVER 10,000yen because shipping and bank transfer become less of the price.

 

If you have questions or would like to try it out, auction@bttrains.com. Please do NOT bid on things that have less than a day left on them or less than two on a Friday. Our people in Japan take the weekend off and MIGHT miss your bid.

 

Bob

BT Trains

bob@bttrains.com

 

That's a really cool idea Bob! If I see something I like I'll let you know!

[JR 500系]

Bumping this thread as i finally marked up enough courage and decided to give a try on Yahoo Auctions. I chose Private Import Japan (PIJ) as it seems they clearly explained the entire ordering process and looks really simple to use for me. Here are some photos of my wins! Although it is more costly to get for some items, but some dis-continuoed items that are very hard to find can be bought for a very neat price, like my Tomix 92639 JR-300 series Tokaido Shinkansen Nozomi 7 car set for example! Great working condition! Now i'm hooked on PIJ! Enjoy the photos!

 

 

 

 

[marknewton]

I needed another Kato HO scale C56, so I gave JAUCE a go. I won the auction, the parcel was mailed on the 26th, and arrived today, the 29th. It was very well packed, so the model is in perfect condition - looking at it I suspect it has never been out of its box. I won't be buying all my Japanese models this way, but for OOP stuff, it seems to work pretty well.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[kmcsjr]

Folks. I just bit on auctions.jp, through buyee. They did not take a payment at the time of bid, as described by nearly all these posts. Did he format change, or have I missed something? I'm listed as top bidder, right now...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[katoftw]

I think years ago. Well at least before i starting using buyee in early 2013. They have never taken money upfront. I use credit card as payment option.

[cteno4]

Yes this is an old thread, perhaps folks using buyee can chime in with some updated info.

 

Thanks

 

Jeff

[Densha]

Just a quick heads up. If you use the following link you can search for closed auctions from the past 120 days: https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/closedsearch/closedsearch?

 

This may come in handy when you're looking for market prices. Paying too much is something nobody wants to after all.

[nickhp]

Check my new topic in this forum section detailing changes to SMJ’s service.

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/13727-shopping-mall-japan-smj-service-changes/

 

Nick

Edited January 9, 2018 by cteno4
Link added

[JR 500系]

Aside from Buyee, there seems to be a new player in the proxy market, Zenmarket, which some of us have already tried out their services... Listed on their webpage, they seem to charge rather low, at 300 yen per order instead of percentages, and no consolidation fees.... which is really attractive over Buyee... 

 

But ti seems they also desire a deposit before any bids is to be made... is this the normal? I read that the deposit will be refunded if you did not win the auction, but having money stuck there in Zenmarket almost surely means that I will purchase from Yahoo Auctions all the time which seriously isn't very healthy for my rapidly-thinning wallet....   

[cteno4]

Basically the definition of heroin Sammy...

 

jeff

[katoftw]

Buyee used to do that years ago also.

[JR 500系]

On ‎30‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 8:48 AM, katoftw said:

I think years ago. Well at least before i starting using buyee in early 2013. They have never taken money upfront. I use credit card as payment option.

 

1 hour ago, katoftw said:

Buyee used to do that years ago also.

 

They did? I thought only PIJ (Private Import Japan) used to do that... 

 

3 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Basically the definition of heroin Sammy...

 

jeff

 

Yap... and it's bad. but I want the Tomytec Tobu 5 bus set so badly...  should I take the plunge to start?  Haha though usually it is due to peer pressure that one started on drugs, but I guess it's more like self pressure for me... haha

[Gryphr]

I have just tried them a few days ago too. The package is still on it's way to me but so far their system worked very well although the deposit system can be a bit unintuitive I guess? It is only required for Auctions however, you can pay the normal way when buying from shops.

After you loaded a sufficient amount money into your account you can bid on auctions, to the maximum what is in your Account (Keep in mind that there's a 300 yen service fee per auction that also needs to be covered by that). I guess the upside to this is that you can upload the maximum amount you're happy to pay and won't easily get led to bid higher than that.
Domestic shipping costs are charged when the item arrives at their warehouse and will either be deducted from your account balance or otherwise the next time you pay for something (ie Intl. Shipping)

There's no initial package consolidation fee as you can freely select which items shall be packed together and after "creating" a package you have a 10 min grace period so you can correct something should you have made a mistake, afterwards seperating/adding to a created package is 1000 yen. (If the parcel contents have to be changed due to shipping restrictions that's free too I think). After they created the package and confirmed shipping costs, you can again select any other of their shipping methods if you don't like the shipping costs. As they show you the shipping costs for all available shipping variants at that point, changing the method is instant.

 

International Shipping prices seem ok from what I've seen. I have ordered a single Tomix Shinkansen Bookcase and after initially choosing Avia Small I changed to "DHL International Plus" which was the second cheapest at ~1500 yen (cheapest was "DHL International Standard" at ~1300 but without tracking/insurance). SAL Air/Avia Small/ePacket was about 2300 yen, EMS was 3500 if I remember right, SAL Parcel and DHL were a bit above that I think.

 

You can also withdraw amounts of money back to your bank or whereever you paid from, however you cannot withdraw more than what you uploaded into the account within the last 180 days using that payment method, but I guess that usually shouldn't be a problem :D

Edited May 13, 2018 by Gryphr

[chadbag]

I don't like the whole deposit thing.  

 

So I asked my SIL to bid on something I found that was interesting.  We'll see if I win.  If I do, she'll pay for it and I'll just send her some green (US$)...  We send some to her regularly for my MIL anyway and she gathers my infrequent Amazon.co.jp domestic shipments and then sends everything all at once.

 

[JR 500系]

1 hour ago, chadbag said:

I don't like the whole deposit thing.  

 

So I asked my SIL to bid on something I found that was interesting.  We'll see if I win.  If I do, she'll pay for it and I'll just send her some green (US$)...  We send some to her regularly for my MIL anyway and she gathers my infrequent Amazon.co.jp domestic shipments and then sends everything all at once.

 

 

I don't like the deposit thing either, but it IS one of the cheapest option around for proxy (Zen Market)...  You are very lucky to have families in Japan and a lot of us don't so we have to rely on these services to get what we desire on Yahoo Auctions unfortunately, so having more service choices are great!

 

That's a new player in town, u-click-to-buy or something? https://www.uclick2buy.com/  

Sorry, it seems they weren't so new afterall, perhaps new to the Japanese market... 

 

Which leaves me to wonder, what do these proxy services actually make? I mean, yes there is a 300 yen service fee, but is it really enough to cover for helping to bid, pay, pack, store, ship these items to so many people across the globe? What else are they making that I am missing here... 

[chadbag]

8 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

 

I don't like the deposit thing either, but it IS one of the cheapest option around for proxy (Zen Market)...  You are very lucky to have families in Japan and a lot of us don't so we have to rely on these services to get what we desire on Yahoo Auctions unfortunately, so having more service choices are great!

 

That's a new player in town, u-click-to-buy or something? https://www.uclick2buy.com/  

Sorry, it seems they weren't so new afterall, perhaps new to the Japanese market... 

 

Which leaves me to wonder, what do these proxy services actually make? I mean, yes there is a 300 yen service fee, but is it really enough to cover for helping to bid, pay, pack, store, ship these items to so many people across the globe? What else are they making that I am missing here... 

 

100% agree that most people don't have family in country to help.  But I might use the service if they got rid of the deposit as I don't want to bother my family all the time with this sort of thing...  I'd rather just deal with it myself.    I'll have to check the "new player"

 

and btw, we did not win the "test case" where my SIL bid.  It got to our max bid and at the last moment someone sniped it.  Which is ok.  Since I don't have direct control over bidding there is less temptation or ability to stretch my budget at the last second 🙂