Question for the Buyee users... What's up with their inconsistent shipping charges? I tried them for the first time last month, and the first transaction went fine. Shipping was a touch high, but not crazy. Now, though, I've just consolidated 4 vinly figs that weigh maybe 2-3lbs and they're charging me $130 for shipping (and that's after the consolidation charge). I've been getting stuff shipped from Japan for more than a decade and have never seen such an outrageous fee. I've got an inquiry in about it, but would love to know if anyone has experienced the same.
Yeah, I've inquired about a bad experience a few months ago. The package was listed and calculated at twice its actual weight. The shipping fee was outrageous, I ate it, and couldn't get anything other than a generic "those are the rules" response from Buyee. Not sure what the real story was there, but between the package consolidation weirdness that's been discussed before, that weighing "error", and a recent botch with a Mercari purchase attempt—I'm not using them anymore. I'm curious what your response from them will be—did they list the actual shipping weight for your figures?
The package supposedly weighs 3,800g (8.4lbs) with dimensions of 17in x 17in x 23in, which is completely insane for 4 Marusan 450 figs. Each fig weighs approximately 260g and domestic shipping on these figs was ¥843. WTF?
In the US, that size box would bump the shipping rate to Dimensional Rate, which here is anything over 1 cubic foot (1728 inches). Might be the same sort of rate jump due to box size there, too. https://www.stamps.com/usps/dimensional-weight/
If you selected their air delivery service, charges are determined by volumetric and actual weight (see rates here). DHL rates can be found on the same page. You can find the EMS volumetric weight formula here. Did you opt for protective packaging? By my experience, though I appreciate the added security, they really overdo it. I've had boxes that end up being way bigger than necessary to accommodate the amount of bubble wrap they use. The items I order end up occupying only about 60-70% of the container's volume. Definitely worth it for anything you're really concerned about, but you may see the cost increase substantially. Packaging materials can be expensive and I ship a lot of stuff so I always save everything and feel like I got my money's worth.
The other thing you have to know is a weird thing buyee does unless you specifically ask them not to is that when you consolidate packages- let’s say you order 4 items and ask for consolidation: buyee will *consolidate* the 4 packages in the boxes and packages they arrived to buyee into one larger box. You have to ask them to take your purchases out of the shipping boxes they arrived in at buyee and consolidate the items into the smallest package possible. You also have to elect the “lite” buying option, or opt out of any insurance they offer because they’re essentially removing the item from the original sellers packaging and don’t want to be liable for damage. If you’re ordering soft vinyl toys it’s not a big deal- they’re usually pretty robust. The shipping however will be much less. I found this out after winning about 6 fight figures and a couple of micros only to be told shipping was $90+. I ate it, and the box that arrived was about 3’ x 24” x 24”! Inside was the 5 individual shippers from the original sellers, all wrapped in bubble wrap.
Thanks for all the responses. I didn't request the extra protection packaging; seemed overkill for vinyl figs that tend to survive just about anything. @hellopike How do you get them to ignore the original shipping boxes during consolidation? I didn't see an option for something like that. Did you just contact them and tell then to discard the shipper boxes?
What I do in order to have buyee remove the original packaging and repackage my items in the most compact way possible is the following: 1. On each auction or store purchase, I select the 300 yen Inspection only plan. 2. When I consolidate shipping, I select consolidation and protective packaging (1000 yen + 1500 yen (I think)) With this combo they have consistently removed the individual packaging and re-wrapped everything in new bubble wrap. The final box should have smaller dimensions than one containing all the original boxes. I found with the 500 yen plans at checkout, they will always retain the original packaging. I think it's a requirement for the shipping insurance. So paying for extra protective packaging results in bubble wrap around the original shipping boxes, and a giant final box, which is insane for soft vinyl. YMMV. Someone may have a better/cheaper formula.
@blakewest That sounds like it might work. If I already consolidated the package for the figs, would I 'dispose package' and basically start over? I'm cool paying the consolidation fee again, just want to make sure that I won't get charged the shipper-to-Buyee shipping fees twice (since they prompt for immediate payment of the domestic shipping when you dispose).
I really have no idea if they will make any changes once you've had them consolidate and pack a box. I have also never tried emailing them. I just tried the method I described, and it seemed to work.
When I am ready to have my purchases shipped to me, I elect to have the package consolidation, I get the updated item number or order number or whatever they generate and then I email them with that number and ask them to remove the seller boxes and repack them into the smallest box they can. A buyee rep said to always email them with this info to ensure they pack it correctly.
Correct. I paid for it once and it was a ridiculous amount of bubble wrap that really wasn’t needed. So I always opt out of that, unless I was buying something fragile.
Yeah, I have boxes of bubble wrap in the garage now. Way more than my collection takes to pack up. :p
I am sorry you guys have had some unfortunately experience. I've always found Buyee a costly, and not really beneficial (over other buying/middlemen) services. They have definitely also changed a lot of their cost models, including the various shipping, repacking, and insurance 'levels' they try to confuse you with. It is basically like buying a plane ticket on one of those travel sites, where you have to go through 6 extra windows and loads of fine print and 'opt out' check boxes just to proceed with your original purchase at the normal price. Just to echo what the others have said here, it is still possible to do, though, once you get by the hurdles, but I would also recommend no extra packaging and be sure to select the consolidation option which is not the 'package consolidation' because that is exactly what they will do, put a whole bunch of boxes in a massive, and also extra packed, larger box. Part of the cost increase as well is there is still ongoing shipping restrictions for many countries from Japan due to the ongoing conflict and airspace avoidance of Ukraine. And, for what it is worth, I've also found that shipping cost estimates the past while [from all sorts of places] have been incredibly variable and not at all necessarily related to size or weight of the items involved. It can be a real gamble, and often does not pay off for those of us (like me) who might just be buying very cheap, small, lightweight stuff; the shipping ends up orders more than the toy costs and is really only warranted for something you are passionate about. Like Nick said above, they kind of have you over the barrel at that point too; I suppose with some you might be able to cancel, but at the cost of losing your item and being out your funds, so you kind of have to eat these extra fees to shop in Japan until things get sorted out. All this being said, although Buyee becomes a bit ubiquitous with its website connections and constant ads, I still don't see anything that sets them above my other experiences with buying services.
I've been extremely happy using Zen Market. You have to deposit funds, and there's a small fee, but everything has been super smooth and they communicate very clearly when I've had questions.
+1 for ZenMarket. I have been using them for many years and shipped many consolidated packages without any issues. No extra fee for consolidation or inspection, just a flat ¥300 fee per item. They have handled some tricky questions and situations for me quite well along with getting some big grail items to me safely without a problem. The only big negative is the requirement to deposit funds before bidding or ordering items. Also, a warehouse storage limit of 45 days before ¥50 per item/day starts incurring.
One time I had them consolidate things for three toys and the issue was....Each toys was shipped separately in a box. So they put the three boxes in one giant box which made the weight increase.
I've had an account for a while but only started bidding with FromJapan this past month. Buyee sometimes restricts access to certain auctions for reasons that are not always clear to me. I had no trouble bidding on some of these listings using FromJapan. Service fees are comparable to Buyee and they offer the same shipping methods, however, you can manually select between DHL and FedEx unlike Buyee who I believe consolidates the two into their air delivery option and selects which to use based on the best rate available (I could be mistaken on that, maybe someone has more insight on the matter). They provide 45 days of free storage vs. Buyee's 30 day period. They also offer free package consolidation. I'm currently awaiting my first shipment from them. I recently tried Treasure Japan. I wouldn't recommend since they charge a commission fee based on the final value. I only utilized their service because I was making a purchase from a market that wasn't accessible through Buyee and FromJapan rejected to insure my purchase due to limited feedback possessed by the seller I was going to buy from. In the end the transaction went smoothly and they were very quick to ship (worth it for the insurance and peace of mind). For many years in the past I used Mail Order Japan. They require a 50% deposit prior to making any bids and also charge a commission fee similar to Treasure Japan. Not the most convenient or cost effective shopping proxy, but they were always very responsive and I never had a bad experience. They also helped me put in a few orders with smaller shops that required more direct forms of communication.
@Brooklyn_Vinyl there are quite a few pre-existing threads where we've hashed out the pros and cons of different buying services, but I will just echo Mark and Ryan's comments to say ZenMarket has been really decent for me as well. Switched to them after using TokyoBuyers which went under, and also have a lot of concurrent accounts with other services, but in terms of overall aspects - including here customer service, storage times, package consolidation, fees, live bidding, simple transactions, up front costs to bid, ability to bid on items, being able to withdraw deposits, reliability, a decent user interface - I have looked at a lot (and I mean a lot) of other ones, and have not found anything as good. There are some flaws, but same goes for everything. By and large the experience has been a positive and from what I've used and experienced, there and elsewhere, it is a safe, reliable recommendation.
I wanted to thank everyone for their help/responses. I think I'm all straightened out. Going through email support got me the same sort of automated wall responses others described, but once I got in touch with Buyee via Discord things were fast and smooth. They're un-cosolidating/downsizing/re-consolidating for me. Even if it doesn't dent the final cost that much, gotta say they were very responsive and gave me clear options and explanations. For anyone else that needs to get in touch with Buyee, here's their Discord invite: https://discord.com/invite/gcRM66447q
