Awesome, thanks Grace. I really appreciate it. This was going back some time now, so honestly I am not holding out a ton of hope, but worth a shot.
@fosa comun I’ve been told by a couple people there is a DHL option, but the pricing seems to be all over the place. One said it was worth it and fine, another said it was costing almost twice as much as EMS for a few bundled items. I haven’t looked into it myself.
That's been my experience with Buyee and DHL so far—a bit expensive. Buyee, though, ships everything in the boxes they were originally shipped in, so you're likely to get an enormous box of boxes, no matter what.
I just got a package from Tokyo that was shipped via Yamato Transport, volume and weight was the equivalent of two standard Bullmark vinyls. Cost only 2,000 yen and got to New Jersey in five days. Science Patrol is using that carrier for the time being. How about shipping packages from America to Japan? What carriers are people using?
You should still be able to use USPS to Japan just fine, and it is by far the most affordable service for smaller (by weight) packages.
Well, one of my wayward EMS packages finally got lost in the system. The crazy part is that it was the largest package by far, containing a reissue of G1 Fortress Maximus (the 2-foot-tall Transformer). Even worse is that it apparently made it to my area, but got lost in the local USPS sorting plant some time in July. When I went down to our post office, one of the supervisors checked on the package, but told me they had no way of tracking it down and I should just have the sender file an insurance claim. It is literally sitting in their own building probably 15-20 minutes away, and they don't know how to find it. I may try another post office to see if they are more helpful. If anyone has had a similar situation of a package getting lost in the sorting plant, please let me know if you have any advice. Just frustrating to have a giant box go missing on the last leg of the trip, after paying over $100 in shipping and waiting for 4+ months.
This is my first time shopping with DHL, but it's not bad! I think it cost me $14-ish, which is cheaper than what I can usually ship an 8" monster within the USA (but maybe I'm doing that wrong). I put in my order seven days ago, Mandy processed it within four, and it only took three days to get from Osaka to my house. Nice! Side-note, I recently had a box that I tried to ship to Mexico, and it bounced back after six months. I think it was returned to the USPS fairly quick, but took several months to get back here. Not complaining too loudly. I know most postal workers are honest people, put under a lot of stress this year.
I think Mandarake has negotiated rates with DHL from pre Covid. for a regular shipper, up to .5kg is about $35 to USA ($40 for 1kg) . Someone correct me if I'm wrong
I could verify similar experiences. Mandarake has the best DHL rates from Japan that I have seen. Other middleman services for YJA are going to have more expensive DHL (and FedEx/UPS) rates similar to what Max is quoting. Also, for those looking to ship large, expensive boxes, beware of US import duty fees for fully-declared packages. EMS/USPS rarely (or never) imposed import duty fees, but all the personal couriers are going to bill for this plus an additional prepayment fee on top. This all the detail provided from cbp.gov:
I have never incurred any customs charges ever, in 25 years of collecting this stuff. What about everyone else here?
Wondering if anybody has recent experience with EMS from Italy (or Europe in general) to the US. It certainly hasn’t been as long as the frustrating experiences of others here—at a standstill for well over one week now and has yet to leave Italy.
So after enjoying months of low DHL pricing from Mandarake... today I was presented with a much larger DHL price that did not change based on the number of items in my cart. So it appears that they’ve adjusted their structure again. Also interesting was an immediate request for payment. No waiting for them to verify items or provide final costs. The checkout and payment was all at once. Interesting.
Well, that is unfortunate to hear. I had been loving their DHL pricing. I wonder if the immediate payment request is because they automated the purchasing process instead of having a real person calculate it all. Maybe it just applies a blanket DHL price for everyone now?
@akum6n That was goin’ to be my question. I tried to pick up a $15 GID Pumpkin Head Bomber a few months back, and payment/shipping was required immediately at checkout. DHL shipping was an astounding $45. Not sure why that location is built as such, and it’s the only one I’ve attempted to buy from with that setup.
I ordered a couple of items last week, and while their payment request was surprisingly fast (within the hour), the shipping fees were still low.
It was Sahra, good catch! That said, an order I placed from Sahra in July was not handled this way. Just odd.
I was always under the impression that Sahra listings were online stock and it’s basically like buying from any other web store, while the other locations are listing storefront stock that has to be checked and pulled. I haven’t ordered from Sahra in a quite a while. Or any Manda location for that matter... No clue as to why shipping would be pricier, it seems counterintuitive for a location seemingly specializing in mail order.
@Michael Beverage is right, as far as I know Sahra is a kind of warehouse where all its stock is for sale online. I made a purchase in Sahara last week and also the invoice arrived in a matter of minutes, I bought a couple of standard size pieces and the shipping cost was ¥ 4,540 via DHL.
Offhand, I would guess Sahra has some sort of predetermined shipping charge when the items are put online, since they invoice immediately upon purchase. The other Mandarakes probably charge the actual shipping rate when they pull and box the items.
I realize it’s been pinned down to Sahra already, but to confirm I order two standard sized figures from the Nakano location and was charged approximately 1600¥ For dhl.