I forgot how I used CELGA back in the day. Was there always a 20% fee on the final bid and are there cheaper options than Celga out there?
ZenMarket charges ¥300 per item. 45-day max storage until a ¥50/day fee per item begins. They charge bank fees upfront to prepay funds into a spending account. You have to bid or buy through their site using proxy accounts. I have received orders from them without any problems. Anybody have feedback on Buyee or other sites?
I have a couple of years using Buyee as a service to buy at YJP and I have never had problems until now. Win an auction (ironically a bullmark vintage standard Goji) and for some reason buyee could not make the charge to PayPal that is the method that I use to pay, I assumed that some other payment had entered and that I did not have enough balance, so I communicate with them (Buyee) and I tell them that tomorrow I'm going to the bank to check what happened and to know why the charge could not be made, I got and check the balance in the cashier and there are funds but still deposit an extra 100 USD to avoid problems, I keep trying make the payment but still do not allow me the page, I tell the support department that I still can not make the payment and they recommend me to change the payment method and when I try to do it on the page I get error, so I comment to them that I would better if they sent me an invoice through PayPal to make the payment and they answer me to check everything again, I return to the bank but now with an executive and he tells me that the chip of the card is failing and he gives me a new plastic. When I try to enter to my Buyee page to make the payment with the new card I had previously registered, the page tells me that my email or password is incorrect; I assumed that the page was under maintenance and two days later I receive an email where Buyee told me that my membership was canceled and that I will no longer be able to use its services, being that I was always in contact with them to let them know about the situation. That is my sad story with Buyee, the letter of cancellation of my membership was received just yesterday. Now I do not know what will happen to my figure P.S. Mark do you recommend ZenMarket to do my purchases in YJP, because apparently I will have to find another company that gives me the service.
Zen Market sounds similar to "From Japan" , which is what I've recently thought about using. I like the idea of using as few sites / companies as possible.
Zen Market is great for BIN auctions on YJA and store purchases but sucks for bidding. You literally have to have exactly what you're bidding +300 yen (service fee) in your account. Given how auctions constantly change and you don't want to bid too early or within the last 5 minute because of those stupid time extensions I recommend using someone else like Shopping Mall Japan. I was trying to win that Glow M1 Sanda Gaira set and made a huge mistake of using Zen Market (I only tried because I bought some store items through them). It was 19000 with a little over 5 minutes to go and added 22800 but by the time I did it shot past 24000 so I could not even bid! Then I had to wait a day for a refund and then wait 5 days for paypal to refund me. So I was out $225 for about week. Money I could of used to win that auction and 2 more sets than came after it on YJA (using SMJ), but I never could waiting for my refund. So not only did I not get to bid, I lost out on two more auctions on the same item. SMJ is the best. You can deposit $60 and it gives you 30000 yen spending power without having to constantly add money. At least SMJ trusts you to pay invoices without fucking you up by constantly adding whatever you're bidding during a live auction.
@Alebrije - Hi Roger, I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with Buyee. I believe all of these proxy/buyer services have problems to some degree, but your specific situation sounds very poorly handled, and would put me off from ever signing up on that site. Even if they had problems with your PayPal account, I see that as no reason to cancel your membership completely... and to possibly lose a vintage Bullmark goji?! Totally unacceptable. I have had a good experience with Celga, but their 20% fee is too expensive for me, which is I why I went elsewhere. As for ZenMarket, they have been quite reliable for me, but I agree with @Lixx that the requirement to have all your funds prepaid to even bid on auctions is a tall ask. I have experienced many times the lack of last-minute funds to win a close auction, and you have to be incredibly strategic to be successful. They do support "sniper bids" in the last 5-10 minutes, but I have had a few of those that failed to post. I have now switched to up-front bidding, for better or worse. As with any site, they also have random system maintenance issues and bugs, but I have never been out money from them, and every package has been well-packed and delivered safely without problems. Now to check out Shopping Mall Japan... thanks for the recommendation.
I have used buyee many times and have been happy with the process, except for the final shipping. I've found it cheaper to simply ship each auction win separately, generally using SAL airmail which is usually around $10 and gets here within a week. I've tried shipping a bunch of orders and ended up paying a fortune because they just box up all of the boxes into one giant box. The items I got could have fit into a medium size priority box but instead came in box big enough for a huge microwave My other option was to pay for them to repackage each item. So I guess if you spent some time you could figure out the most cost effective but I think they'll nickel and dime you either way in the end. It's great for buying smaller boxes of items that you don't mind shipping SAL. The cheapest way, they simply slap a new shipping label on the package they receive, so if the original seller sent the item in a bubble mailer, it will be sent overseas the same. I've recently gotten several sametans, a tokoji custom, some small Gargamels etc and many have come in the bubble mailer with no issues. It's a gamble though. Sorry to hear your troubles @Alebrije, that's infuriating! I'm hoping you got an auto response from the payment not working in time, and may be possible to get it reversed with more correspondence, but I wouldn't blame you if you were done with buyee altogether And why doesn't Mandarake offer SAL airmail?!?
Thank you guys, but so far I have not received any emails from Buyee. I think the Godzilla it´s lost. I already started using shoppin mall japan but I still do not get used to it, it's like if after using google chrome you have to use AOL to search. During this week I will make my first bets, later I will tell you how I was.
I'm sorry, man. I hope that's not the case. If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, that is what I'm wanting to move away from. Has anyone here had any experience with "From Japan"?
Thank you, but I have already sent to the support team about 10 emails and I have not received any response. Apparently they are not interested in giving me some explanation, I do not know if they returned the figure, maybe they never paid to the seller or just threw it in the trash . As I said I had never had problems with the company, the only thing I would criticize before this happened to me would be as some have said, the shipping service; In some cases it is better to do the shipments separately than to consolidate them.
I was paying ¥500 per transaction + 10% of total listing before I kicked my sofubi habit, I think mandarake had additional fees. The buying service would extend me @$300 in credit before asking to settle up, I think my guy's name was Kohei.
Good news! After about 20 emails to the buyee support team and almost two weeks later finally yesterday at 12:00 a.m. I received an email saying that my membership had been restored and for which I could make payment for the figure that was pending. So after so many frustrations I will be able to recover my Goji. I share a photo with you:
@Alebrije - Roger, this is excellent news. Also, your photo is the exact same gojira that I had hoped you had won, but I did not want to make you feel any worse by mentioning it. It's an excellent silver-coated Bullmark, and in wonderful condition as well. Congrats!
Thank you very much Mark as you well say; The amount of silver paint was what attracted my attention and that was why I felt bad about losing it. I know that those manufactured by Marusan are older and more valued by collectors, but it seemed to me that the paint of this one was in excellent condition. I hope I did not bet against you in this one...
@Alebrije - Roger, no bids from me, and I am really glad you were able to win this one. Now, the real question, do you still plan to use Buyee going forward?
It is a tough question, despite my bad experience I think that the platform used by Buyee is superior to other companies and that makes it easier to search for products. But for now I will rest for a while of Buyee and the next purchase will do through SMJ and in the future will alternate the two.
