Japan Buying service

There is a service out to help people buy items on Japanese auctions . It's called Rinkya.com. Seems like a great idea. There has been a Japanese buying service on ebay for years to help people in Japan bid on American auctions.

yeah...see his post on this site.

I can't find it anymore. I also noticed that quite a few of the Japan stores like Ikebe and others have things on there from time to time . So this will also be a great way to buy items from places that don't ship out of Japan.

Someone posted about this over at Harmony Central yesterday. I checked it out last night. Seems there's lots of little fees involved (not so transparent), but it probably still works out cheaper than buying (inflated) on ebay with the $125 shipping.

I hope someone here gives it a shot and reports what the winning bid was, what all the Rinkya fees were and what shipping was.

So who's going to be the Rinkya guinea pig?

While googling I found another site that offers a similar service:
Edit:link was wrong
http://www.mailorderjapan.com/yahoo-auction-japan/index.php

At first glance they seem to be a bit less expensive than Rinkya, don't know if that holds true though.
Oh, and I am not affiliated with them in anyway and currently don't want to play guinea pig either :wink:

http://www.mailorderjapan.com/yahoo-auction-japan/fees.php

If the bid final bid price is Yen 3,000 to Yen 10,000, then the base service fee is $10. For each additional Yen 1,000, there is a fee of $1.

Item Price + MOJ Commission Fee + Bank Transfer Fee + Local Shipping + Handling Fee For Large Items Only + Actual International Shipping Charges + 5% Money Transfer Charges

Y 10,000 = $82 at today's exchange rate (1 USD = 121.155 JPY via http://www.xe.com/ucc/)

So let's say we have a guitar that ends at $500, which equals Y 60,577. Let's just make it Y 61,000.

From the $10 base fee of Y 10,000, we have a difference of Y 51,000, which translates to $51 (each Y 1,000 = $1). Add $10 base fee and we're looking at $61 in MOJ base fee for that $500 guitar.

Item Price = $500
MOJ Commission Fee = $61 (12%)
Bank Transfer Fee = $2
Local Shipping = $30 GUESSING (possibly on the high end)
Handling Fee For Large Items Only = $15 (GUESSING - their page with this info is blank)
Actual International Shipping Charges = $125 (safe estimate)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBTOTAL = $733
---------------------------------------------------------------------
5% Money Transfer Charges = $36.65 (their site says 5% of total, NOT item price)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL = $769.65 (that $500 guitar shipped to USA)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MINUS $125 International Shipping = $644.65 (final purchase price)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FEES "& STUFF" on that $500 auction end = $144.65 (29% of $500 auction end price)

I looked at the site VERY briefly last night when I saw all the fees involved. Pretty nuts actually. I think I'll just continue to manage ordering on my own.

Jason

magentaplacenta said:

http://www.mailorderjapan.com/yahoo-auction-japan/fees.php

If the bid final bid price is Yen 3,000 to Yen 10,000, then the base service fee is $10. For each additional Yen 1,000, there is a fee of $1.

Item Price + MOJ Commission Fee + Bank Transfer Fee + Local Shipping + Handling Fee For Large Items Only + Actual International Shipping Charges + 5% Money Transfer Charges

Y 10,000 = $82 at today's exchange rate (1 USD = 121.155 JPY via http://www.xe.com/ucc/)

So let's say we have a guitar that ends at $500, which equals Y 60,577. Let's just make it Y 61,000.

From the $10 base fee of Y 10,000, we have a difference of Y 51,000, which translates to $51 (each Y 1,000 = $1) in MOJ base fee for that $500 guitar.

Item Price = $500
MOJ Commission Fee = $51 (10%)
Bank Transfer Fee = $2
Local Shipping = $30 GUESSING (possibly on the high end)
Handling Fee For Large Items Only = $15 (GUESSING - their page with this info is blank)
Actual International Shipping Charges = $125 (safe estimate)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBTOTAL = $723
---------------------------------------------------------------------
5% Money Transfer Charges = $36.15 (their site says 5% of total, NOT item price)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL = $759.15 (that $500 guitar shipped to USA)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MINUS $125 International Shipping = $634.15 (final purchase price)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FEES "& STUFF" on that $500 auction end = $134.15 (26% of $500 auction end price)

Is my math working out right here?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I feel a bit bad about posting that link now...

I think your math is correct, I'd guess though since that 10$ is a base fee it will be added too, so that it'd be $61 for them.

I think Big Willie Style is right.

FYI, I just heard back from Rinkya re: guitar shipping to USA. I bought a Greco EG1000 in the original hardshell from Japan. Shipping was $105 (packing was first class) and was delivered in 2 days. Japanese postmark was like the 19th, knock on my door was on the 21st (I'm west coast). I think it was EMS in Japan, it was delivered by USPS. I was amazed how fast it was.

I'll have to see what that $500 guitar turns out to be at Rinkya for comparison.

Yes Niko, thanks for catching that, it should be $61, I'll update my post.

Thank you for your mail!
If the guitar comes with a soft case, a ballpark shipping estimate is
between $100-$120
If the guitar comes with a hard case, the shipping costs varies dependent
upon the case's weight, usually between $120-$170.00
When an item arrives at our warehouse, we can also provide a more accurate
estimate.
Please contact me if you have anymore questions and we hope to see you at
Rinkya again soon!
Have a wonderful weekend!

Thank you ^_^
Laurel
Rinkya

I'll join both of them. Many times I've seen things on Yahoo Japan that I wish I could have bid on. Even with the fees, for the Americans it's still $100's of dollars cheaper than the Japanese ebay sellers.

Cool, please post up if you win something and if you don't mind, list all the costs. I'm really interested in a "real world" example with a guitar.

magentaplacenta said:

Cool, please post up if you win something and if you don't mind, list all the costs. I'm really interested in a "real world" example with a guitar.

Click to expand...

Think your're right with listing the total costs ... I won't try these because there might also be some difficulties then when refunds or warranty claims appear ... in reality ... :-? 8) 8)

Roger

It's definitely not going to be for everybody. People who are very particular or have problems with ebay would do better to stay away all together.

Hi guys,
No idea how much I would get flamed but I would jump in anyway.
This is Azuma and I run mailorderjapan.

There is no $10 base fee and there is no handling fee if your guitar is more than 40,000 yen. Plus, we charge the actual shipping cost, both locally and for ems. About the 5% transaction cost, thats the amount less than we actually pay for getting the money from you guys.

I am in the process of redoing the entire website and you will see some changes very soon, including making the pricing structure in JPY for everything so that the ex rate conversions are made clear too. I would be very thankful if you guys could come up with a good formula for the pricing structure. I have my plans but I want to listen to my customers too and your opinion would be highly appreciated and may affect the pricing structure. I really want to make this a customer focussed service.

I have talked to lots of my customers and am making major changes. When you make your suggestions, please dont forget that I have to run the business. Open to anything and everything.

Looking foward to your opinions

Best

Azuma

Azuma, I'll be watching for your new site. Please let us know when it's ready!

Well after looking at both of them they both need a lot of work if they expect serious guitar buyers to use them.

Hey Azuma, thanks for posting. Could you break down and list out all the fees as they stand today (like I did on page 1) on an hypothetical guitar that ended at $500 USD with shipping to USA?

Obviously your estimations would be much more accurate than mine and I'm sure you have a lot of potential customers here.

Well, I signed up and sent in my money. In reality it would be easier for me to try and learn to read & write Japanese then to use this service. 1st up, you have to send in 1/2 the money up front for the item you bid on. Fair enough, as it goes towards the purchase price. However, with the time difference you won't get a confirm until the following day, if your lucky. Now when you go to bid you will find the translated pages load slowly and only some translate. Case in point, I wanted to bid on a Greco. Greco is not one of the defaults, so either you page thru 30 or so pages , or your screwed. If you type in Greco under MI it will come up, but with no translations. For that you have to cut/paste. If you are not used to yahoo auctions (as I am) this can be a nightmare. So now you find your item. When you want to bid you have to fill out yet another form that asks you for additional page numbers and auction prefixes which are nowhere to be found on the translated pages. IF you get thru all that and do manage to place a bid, there's a good chance it will be rejected. In which case the instructions say to just bid again, but higher (?). As a buying service I think it's a great idea, you just send them the webpage from any store and they add 15-20%. I'm cool with that. As an auction service for yahoo. I have my doubts. But it's still way better than Rinkya, they want a 20 % deposit and it DOESN'T go toward the purchase. It just stays with them.

Great info, it definitely sounds flawed as it stands today.

Whew- I did manage to get a bid placed. So now we'll see how it goes.