Japan Auction/Shopping Service

This spreadsheet only offers what information the service websites provide. Please let me know if I wrote something incorrectly or left something out. I've decided to compare 5 that I've used personally as well as one that a lot of members use. Please let me know if there is another service you'll like me to compare

Note: Please note the ¥ and $ symbols as that might affect your costs and fees.

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Maybe I should make a more detailed post about using Japanese Shopping Service and how they work. I don't really have the time currently so maybe in the future.

Anyways, I have been using JaponicaMarket since 2010 I think? They are a great service to use!


J A P O N I C A  M A R K E T
First, JaponicaMarket is a manual service.
You email them this form: here
They will then create an ID for you that you can also use to place urgent bids (under 24hours). For info on how to place urgent bids/buy-it-now: here

Once you email them, they will email you back letting you know that they have placed the bid/snipe for you. Because they manually place orders for you they are not open 24/7. Their business hours are AM 9:00 ~ PM 17:00 (Japan time). Please keep this in mind especially for urgent orders although they are very nice about it. I have placed a bid basically at 16:59pm and I was resigned to not get the item since there were like 2 hours left and I assumed they closed but 15 minutes later they emailed me letting me know they have placed the order! I felt bad for making them work overtime ;w; but I'm happy that they were helpful and went out of their way to place the bid for me <3

B I D S
It is recommended that you tell them to place your MAX bid; the highest amount you are willing to go. Once they bid for you, it will act similar to eBay where you can see if you are the highest bidder. If someone bids after you, your increment will increase until it reaches your max.
(for example: You bid max of 1000yen on an item that starts out at 100yen. Japonica places the bid for you so currently you are winning at 100yen. Later you come see and saw that people have placed bids but you are still winning at 500yen. You come back later again, and noticed that someone else is winning because they placed 1200yen.)

S N I P E
It is recommended that you them to place your MAX snipe. Snipe works similar to bid; the only difference is that they will bid around 10minutes before the auction ends. They will bid the amount that you informed them to.
{for example: 11minutes until end of item the item is at 500yen. When it's down to 10minutes, your snipe is placed are because your highest snipe is at 1000yen you are winning since now it is at 600yen. You lose however if at 10 minutes and your snipe was placed but someone placed a higher snipe. You placed 1000yen but someone else placed 1500yen)

D I S C O U N T
One thing I love about JM is that they offer discounts if you purchase from the SAME SELLER on the SAME WEBSITE.
Item 1: Full Commission
Item 2: 50% off full commission
Item 3: 75% off full commission
Item 4, 5, 6 etc: 75% off full commission
This applies to Y!J, Rakuten as well as any other Japanese website. It is not restricted to just Y!J

P A Y M E N T  &  S T O R A G E
Payment for your items are automatically withdrawn from your deposit that you pay in advance through PayPal in order to even place a bid or buy-it-now.
It takes a couple of days until it arrives at the agent warehouse.
Once it arrives to the warehouse, they will store your item up to 30 days.
When you are ready, you email them to let them know you want all your items shipped and they will send you a PayPal Invoice for the remaining amount + shipping.
You will have 7 dyas to pay for it.
They will then ship it to your name and address on your account and PayPal which has to match. They don't allow other addresses to be shipped.
They also only accept EMS and Registered Airmail. They do not accept SAL anymore since they want to solely want to use insured shipping methods.
They also do 'Safe Packing' for free (Buyee & FromJapan charges extra for this service) which is when they will minimize the packing to save international shipping.

Hopefully this covers everything. If there's anything else I didn't touch upon or you want additional info please let me know!

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