(BUYEE.JP) Yahoo! Japan auctions, Rinkya, Jauce, etc.

[Callings]

Wondering if you guys recommend using this and what to expect regarding its shipping/packing services?

I'm in the U.S.

Thanks,
Callings

 

[guitar hiro]

Wondering if you guys recommend using this service and what to expect regarding its shipping/packing services?

I'm in the U.S.

Thanks,
Callings

Buyee is one of many proxies that can help you with YJ Auctions.

I used Buyee one time many years ago and I didn't care for their service at that time so, I never used them again.

Prolly wasn't their fault as I was already used to using a different proxy for several years and I was already used to their format, MO, etc.

 

[Callings]

Buyee is one of many proxies that can help you with YJ Auctions.

I used Buyee one time many years ago and I didn't care for their service at that time so, I never used them again.

Prolly wasn't their fault as I was already used to using a different proxy for several years and I was already used to their format, MO, etc.

Any alternatives you'd recommend?

 

[guitar hiro]

Any alternatives you'd recommend?

I have been using Rinkya for about ~15 years but their costs are higher than most other proxies but IMO their services are miles above what the others are offering.
Good service isn't cheap; excellent service isn't cheap.
Over that ~15 years I have an average of ~8 purchases a year with Rinkya and I have not had a single complaint about a single purchase. That's a pretty sweet record.
Some folks wanna go the cheap route and for sure going cheap is an option.
I guess it goes back to that ole saying; one gets what they pay for ...........

 

[MarcoXMarco]

Hi,
My two cents here. I've just had a Breezysound clear customs at LAX, and I used Jauce, after reading everything I could find on the guitar forums, about importing gear using the Japanese proxy sevices, and Buyee may be cheaper, but won't fill out the customs paperwork, if any controlled woods are mentioned in the item's description, including Yahoo auctions, etc.
My understanding is that when these woods were legally used for a musical instrument's contruction, there is no issue importing them.
So some said they had used Buyee successfully, but then had an enormous headache when this issue came up, and Buyee just refused to ship it to anywhere but to a Japanese address, even after the buyer sent them copies of the CITES exemptions. The U.S. buyer had to have them ship to another Japanese shipping service, to then be shipped to the U.S.
Buyee just won't bother with the paperwork. I think if you are looking at Yahoo Japan Auction's, you've checked the box to involve Buyee, and see the ads, some of the auctions will show a note, "May require special shipping arrangements". It may be a thing that Buyee's computers look for words like "mahogony", and "Rosewood" in the auction item details, and that is the deciding factor.
- Marco

 

[rkwest (innadaze)]

I have been using Rinkya for about ~15 years but their costs are higher than most other proxies but IMO their services are miles above what the others are offering.
Good service isn't cheap; excellent service isn't cheap.
Over that ~15 years I have an average of ~8 purchases a year with Rinkya and I have not had a single complaint about a single purchase. That's a pretty sweet record.
Some folks wanna go the cheap route and for sure going cheap is an option.
I guess it goes back to that ole saying; one gets what they pay for ...........

Like-wise.

 

[Callings]

I have been using Rinkya for about ~15 years but their costs are higher than most other proxies but IMO their services are miles above what the others are offering.
Good service isn't cheap; excellent service isn't cheap.
Over that ~15 years I have an average of ~8 purchases a year with Rinkya and I have not had a single complaint about a single purchase. That's a pretty sweet record.
Some folks wanna go the cheap route and for sure going cheap is an option.
I guess it goes back to that ole saying; one gets what they pay for ...........

Not sure if contacting the seller for questions, additional photos, preferred carrier, etc., are even options when using Buyee...

Bit of a deal breaker.

guitar hiro, would you mind describing a few reasons you prefer Rinkya over others?
For interested buyers that have never used a proxy service before, it would be helpful.

I'll be sure to check out the UI for Rinkya.
Thanks for the suggestion/input.

 

[Callings]

Hi,
My two cents here. I've just had a Breezysound clear customs at LAX, and I used Jauce, after reading everything I could find on the guitar forums, about importing gear using the Japanese proxy sevices, and Buyee may be cheaper, but won't fill out the customs paperwork, if any controlled woods are mentioned in the item's description, including Yahoo auctions, etc.
My understanding is that when these woods were legally used for a musical instrument's contruction, there is no issue importing them.
So some said they had used Buyee successfully, but then had an enormous headache when this issue came up, and Buyee just refused to ship it to anywhere but to a Japanese address, even after the buyer sent them copies of the CITES exemptions. The U.S. buyer had to have them ship to another Japanese shipping service, to then be shipped to the U.S.
Buyee just won't bother with the paperwork. I think if you are looking at Yahoo Japan Auction's, you've checked the box to involve Buyee, and see the ads, some of the auctions will show a note, "May require special shipping arrangements". It may be a thing that Buyee's computers look for words like "mahogony", and "Rosewood" in the auction item details, and that is the deciding factor.
- Marco

Interesting, I wonder if anyone has encountered similar issues when making a purchase on Buyee without the inclusion of controlled woods.

Any issues using Jauce?

MarcoXMarco, what can you tell us about shipping costs?
Did your purchase include controlled woods?

Thanks for the input.

 

[MarcoXMarco]

Hi Callings,
I am not ignoring your request, but I still don't have all the exact data finally figured out, and it is a bit complicated. Also, I'm still challenged using this forum. One of the costs that had not occured to me, when I jumped into this, or at least how "dear" it would be, was the haircut my funds transfer, and conversion to Yen, to Jauce, would incur which was about 8%, through PayPal.
Also Jauce charges bidders a fee to deposit that amount into their accounts, in my case it came to about 3%, for about ¥14K. *And*, as I won my 2011 ATE70-BB-R, at the minimum bid, ~¥46K + 10% Japanese sales tax, Jauce I believe charged me to redeposit the remainder of my *maximum bid amount*, ~¥46K, back into my account.
Now, it gets even more complicated. I have remaining in my Jauce account, something like ¥46K. Were I to have that transferred back to me, via PayPal, I expect PayPal will again charge me to return that to my checking account, at ¿8%?. Once you have had 3 haircuts having your remaining funds in your Jauce account, or other proxy buying service, if you anticipate buying something else from Yahoo Japan Auctions, one would be hesitant to take it out.
All in all, this guitar, that I won for about $350 U.S., including Japanese sales tax, plus ¥4500, to ship it to the Jauce warehouse, and Jauce's charges, including repacking it, as it had no case, and I don't know how the auction seller packed it for the trip to Jauce, *if* I had PayPal return my funds, and they again charge about 8%, it would have cost me about $680.
As Jauce uses EMS for international shippping, I was confident that, at least for this modest guitar purchase, I would not incur import duty, or a bill for California sales tax, and so far that seems to be the case. I had read that DHL will charge you for both, S.O.P.
I had tried to buy a *very similar*, ATE70, from two Japanese ebay "brokers", who didn't actually have it to sell to me, for about $700 including shipping, to which ebay would have added 10% California sales tax, ~ $770.
Jauce did a decent job repacking my Tokai for me, and it arrived without damage.
Would Buyee have reshipped this to me, without issue ? I just looked at tthe auction seller's description, and he did not mention the "rosewood" fingerboard, so Buyee might not have had a problem exporting this item out of Japan. Whether they would have done a good job repacking it for me, I don't know. I had read that Jauce does a good job at that, and it is one of the reasons I chose them, for this experiment.

 

[MarcoXMarco]

Interesting, I wonder if anyone has encountered similar issues when making a purchase on Buyee without the inclusion of controlled woods.

Any issues using Jauce?

MarcoXMarco, what can you tell us about shipping costs?
Did your purchase include controlled woods?

Thanks for the input.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/i...ld-you-recommend.2413768/page-2#post-36460149
This is one of the guitar forum threads I studied.

 

[Callings]

Hi Callings,
I am not ignoring your request, but I still don't have all the exact data finally figured out, and it is a bit complicated. Also, I'm still challenged using this forum. One of the costs that had not occured to me, when I jumped into this, or at least how "dear" it would be, was the haircut my funds transfer, and conversion to Yen, to Jauce, would incur which was about 8%, through PayPal.
Also Jauce charges bidders a fee to deposit that amount into their accounts, in my case it came to about 3%, for about ¥14K. *And*, as I won my 2011 ATE70-BB-R, at the minimum bid, ~¥46K + 10% Japanese sales tax, Jauce I believe charged me to redeposit the remainder of my *maximum bid amount*, ~¥46K, back into my account.
Now, it gets even more complicated. I have remaining in my Jauce account, something like ¥46K. Were I to have that transferred back to me, via PayPal, I expect PayPal will again charge me to return that to my checking account, at ¿8%?. Once you have had 3 haircuts having your remaining funds in your Jauce account, or other proxy buying service, if you anticipate buying something else from Yahoo Japan Auctions, one would be hesitant to take it out.
All in all, this guitar, that I won for about $350 U.S., including Japanese sales tax, plus ¥4500, to ship it to the Jauce warehouse, and Jauce's charges, including repacking it, as it had no case, and I don't know how the auction seller packed it for the trip to Jauce, *if* I had PayPal return my funds, and they again charge about 8%, it would have cost me about $680.
As Jauce uses EMS for international shippping, I was confident that, at least for this modest guitar purchase, I would not incur import duty, or a bill for California sales tax, and so far that seems to be the case. I had read that DHL will charge you for both, S.O.P.
I had tried to buy a *very similar*, ATE70, from two Japanese ebay "brokers", who didn't actually have it to sell to me, for about $700 including shipping, to which ebay would have added 10% California sales tax, ~ $770.
Jauce did a decent job repacking my Tokai for me, and it arrived without damage.
Would Buyee have reshipped this to me, without issue ? I just looked at tthe auction seller's description, and he did not mention the "rosewood" fingerboard, so Buyee might not have had a problem exporting this item out of Japan. Whether they would have done a good job repacking it for me, I don't know. I had read that Jauce does a good job at that, and it is one of the reasons I chose them, for this experiment.

No worries MarcoXMarco,
Thanks for posting your experience.

Its good potential users understand the service fees and charges can all be convoluted.

 

[Soulstar89]

This thread has been been extremely helpful for me. I have never used a service like Jauce before so understanding charges on a possible purchase is great to estimate total cost.

I know bassjapandirect do a “hunter service” for a fee. He sources the item you are after, check, setup and do small repairs. He makes a video posted on his YouTube channel then you pay for the item as well as shipping.

I live in the uk so custom tax would occur.

I need to do more research on this. I’ve found a handful of basses lol.

Again this has been very insightful.

 

[MarcoXMarco]

No worries MarcoXMarco,
Thanks for posting your experience.

Its good potential users understand the service fees and charges can all be convoluted.

I'm sorry, I transferred *¥140K, or ¥150K*, around about $1000 U.S. into a Jauce account, of which PayPal charged me about 8% in the transfer rate. I meant to be as much as , *I thought*, I would need to pay for everything, even if the auction price might go at my maximum bid.
Jauce suggests you use PayPal for transferring funds to them, and I would be very surprised if they *weren't getting* a cut of the funds transfer profit. I believe Jauce says there is another way to send them money, though I forget what they say it is.
Perhaps if another member has had experience with this, what that way is, and whether it is less expensive, they could chime in.

 

[Voidoid56]

Zenmarket here, for abt eight years and approaching 200 instruments. I used Jauce before that but left since they didn't offer package consolidation at that point (I think they do now, though?), I was otherwise quite happy with their service.

Zenmarkets "visible" fees are ridiculously low - 500 JPY per transaction - but there may be hidden ones as well, I'm not sure. I haven't actually delved very deeply into it though, I've just been a happy customer. They're good where it counts for me, i e their packing standards are excellent and getting continously better, at least if you spend an extra 1k JPY for reinforced packaging, and their customer service is very good indeed. Mind you, I haven't had any really major issuses so far (touch wood). They're also fine with working with sales channels and vendors other than Yahoo Japan Auctions, Mercari and Rakuten are accessible from the Zen site and they're perfectly happy with purchasing basically anything you can provide a link to.

When I registered with them their weak point was the search function, which actually missed stuff that was up for auction on YJA. So I continued using Jauce's search engine (not that is particularly good, but I was used to it), pasting auction ID's I found there into Zenmarkets search. It might be significantly better these days, though, I really need to check that out.

 

[Sigmania]

Interesting point aboiut the different search results on different platforms. I have noticed that too. And Jauce does consolidate items now from my recent experiences on smaller items.

 

[Callings]

Zenmarket here, for abt eight years and approaching 200 instruments. I used Jauce before that but left since they didn't offer package consolidation at that point (I think they do now, though?), I was otherwise quite happy with their service.

Zenmarkets "visible" fees are ridiculously low - 500 JPY per transaction - but there may be hidden ones as well, I'm not sure. I haven't actually delved very deeply into it though, I've just been a happy customer. They're good where it counts for me, i e their packing standards are excellent and getting continously better, at least if you spend an extra 1k JPY for reinforced packaging, and their customer service is very good indeed. Mind you, I haven't had any really major issuses so far (touch wood). They're also fine with working with sales channels and vendors other than Yahoo Japan Auctions, Mercari and Rakuten are accessible from the Zen site and they're perfectly happy with purchasing basically anything you can provide a link to.

When I registered with them their weak point was the search function, which actually missed stuff that was up for auction on YJA. So I continued using Jauce's search engine (not that is particularly good, but I was used to it), pasting auction ID's I found there into Zenmarkets search. It might be significantly better these days, though, I really need to check that out.

Voidoid56, Nice tip regarding the auction ID'S.

Would you say these services are geared more towards bulk purchases or a single item?

Do you ever communicate with sellers before buying?

How often are there issues with guitars?
Condition, quality, electronics, authenticity, etc.

Thank you for your input.

 

[Voidoid56]

I don't think they're really geared towards an amount of purchases in particular at all, tbh. I'm pretty sure their main business is in general Japanese popular culture items, anything from manga/anime stuff to fashion, so I guess they ship a lot of small stuff in bulk. I really don't know, but they're as fine with shipping a single guitar as three, plus whatever pickups, parts or catalogs I pick up in the process, as long as the package weight is less than 20 kilos.

They have a feature to pass on questions to the seller, but I can't remember if I've ever used it. I have a vague recollection of asking the weight of a guitar at some point, but I'm not sure I got an answer? Not neecessarily Zenmarket's fault though, the seller has to want to answer as well, of course.

I would say that that you're somewhat on your own when it comes to issues and incorrect info. You'll come across a lot of sellers classifying what they sell as "junk", which is actually shorthand for an item sold "as is" with no returns. This does in no way indicate that the item is actually junk or in bad condition, a lot of sellers flog all sorts of second-hand stuff and have no specialised knowledge about guitars. Some are actually recycling stores, i e retailers of general second-hand items, which seems to be a big thing in Japan. Comparatively few of those know that much about guitars and will make few firm claims about the provenance or condition of guitars, which means that there is seldom much to complain about, really.
So, you're very often left to draw your own conclusions based on pics provided, and you will get it wrong at times, it sort of comes with the territory. Which is another good reason to hang out in groups like these, most knowledgeable ppl are prepared to answer questions. And of course, do your own research as well.

But, if you want to snag your dream guitar with full info and be sure that it's in the condition it's advertised to be in, set Google Chrome to autotranslate Japanese and check music dealer's sites. Digimart is a sales site with a lot of pro guitar vendors as well. Zenmarket will attempt to buy anything you provide them with a link to. But security comes at a price, price levels will always be higher with pro dealers.

 

[rkwest (innadaze)]

Well said!

 

[guitar hiro]

Not sure if contacting the seller for questions, additional photos, preferred carrier, etc., are even options when using Buyee...

Bit of a deal breaker.

guitar hiro, would you mind describing a few reasons you prefer Rinkya over others?
For interested buyers that have never used a proxy service before, it would be helpful.

I'll be sure to check out the UI for Rinkya.
Thanks for the suggestion/input.

Rinkya web site is pretty easy to navigate, pretty straight forward.

Place a 'deposit" which is nothing more than a credit limit with a credit card; it's not really a deposit.
You choose your credit limit.

A potential buyer can ask a question(s) and the Rinkya staff will reply.
The seller however may not reply to Rinkya.

Inspection of items by Rinkya staff upon arrival at Rinkya facility

Buyer protection; example: I had a purchase arrive at the Rinkya warehouse with undisclosed damage.
I received a full refund and within just a few days.

Bullet proof re-packaging: sure it costs Xtra but it gets shipped halfway around this spinning rock.

A buyer can select to have 'all' items shipped or can select particular items; if you have multiple items at the Rinkya warehouse. Buyer picks what to ship, or what stays.

Fee/commission structure can be a bit high for items over 100K yen but then it's a choice. Check

Customer support by Rinkya staff is IMO very good to exceptional, considering they are 14 hours difference by time zones.

You want something at a retail shop? Rinkya will try like Hell to get it for you.

The folks at Rinkya are pretty awesome IMO ....... their service may be more expensive but IMO their service is worth it. Others may have a different opinion.

Good luck .......

 

[rkwest (innadaze)]

Exactly!