Cheapest and most convenient I've found so far is ShoppingMallJapan, especially since they have a really nice automatic system. Main inconvenience is putting in the initial deposit, however. -Also they have some strange limitation on a lot of preorders from stores like animate, so if another user on their site preorders the same item on animate before you, no one else is able to make a purchase on the same item even if multiple orders are supposed to be allowed ._.; -Also they have this system where they bring your items to America before shipping it out to the customer first. They claim it saves you money but I think it doesn't in some situations. If you bug them at a certain stage, they can ship your item straight from japan to you. So err Shopping Mall Japan Pros: -Automatic system -Cheapest fees -They offer media mail shipping (super cheap) Cons: -Initial deposit required (you have a spending limit of 5x your deposit, I believe) -Limitation on preorders -Their "mass shipping" system isn't good for certain orders, especially for orders that can't take advantage of media mail shipping anyway. It even slows down the process because that just means they have to ship and process the item in two places instead of just sending it from Japan to you.
I've also used Celga, the rates are realllly close, but at least they don't seem to have limitations (they don't really have enough users for that conflict to happen anyway). Disadvantage is the system is manual and price needs to be paid upfront, so you have to wait for someone there to make the order. Nice thing is though, they're very personal about each order. Almost TOO personal, the last time I ordered from them I had to e-mail them on 3 separate occasions just to let them know why I needed my item shipped SAL instead of EMS, before they finally let the item get shipped SAL =w=; Celga Pros: -Service on more personal level -They have some pretty cute omake available depending on the occasion, check their facebook to see what they have -Smaller userbase, so limitations are not as much of an issue Cons: -Everything is handled automatically, which slows down the process -Full price has to be paid upfront
There's my limited experience XD;;; I'm totally welcome if anyone knows better places than these 2 for the reasons given o3o
hai! one more, but I haven't tried their shopping proxy service in particular: SuToCorp This place also looks like a potentially useful one since they only have 8% service fee (minimum 1000 yen) + 300 yen bank fee (much simpler system to calculate with), just um... I can't figure out how to access their order form LOL (it seems to be broken?). You'd probably have to contact them manually. Oh, also they only ship with EMS which sucks when you can get much better rates with SAL most of the time.
onkei_kun and I had a last-minute run-in with them last week to get WebMoney from them, and they got back to us within an hour, with smooth service :o
One more!! Tenso.com has just added their version of automatic Yahoo!Japan auction bidding, called Buyee. I've honestly not had personal experience with Tenso yet, but tons of pokemon collectors and the like use it from what I've heard, and they're reliable.
Tenso & Buyee Pros: -Automatic system -Cheap fees (cheaper than SMJ as far as I can tell) Cons: -They only ship using EMS with only the exception of lithium batteries (then they use UPS)
Odd thing though, I don't see anything on their site about how long you can keep items in their warehouse (particularly in the case you want to make multiple orders over a course of time and use consolidated shipping). SMJ clearly states up to 60 days in Japan and 90 days in US.
Cheapest and most convenient I've found so far is ShoppingMallJapan, especially since they have a really nice automatic system. Main inconvenience is putting in the initial deposit, however.
-Also they have some strange limitation on a lot of preorders from stores like animate, so if another user on their site preorders the same item on animate before you, no one else is able to make a purchase on the same item even if multiple orders are supposed to be allowed ._.;
-Also they have this system where they bring your items to America before shipping it out to the customer first. They claim it saves you money but I think it doesn't in some situations. If you bug them at a certain stage, they can ship your item straight from japan to you.
So err
Shopping Mall Japan
Pros:
-Automatic system
-Cheapest fees
-They offer media mail shipping (super cheap)
Cons:
-Initial deposit required (you have a spending limit of 5x your deposit, I believe)
-Limitation on preorders
-Their "mass shipping" system isn't good for certain orders, especially for orders that can't take advantage of media mail shipping anyway. It even slows down the process because that just means they have to ship and process the item in two places instead of just sending it from Japan to you.
I've also used Celga, the rates are realllly close, but at least they don't seem to have limitations (they don't really have enough users for that conflict to happen anyway). Disadvantage is the system is manual and price needs to be paid upfront, so you have to wait for someone there to make the order. Nice thing is though, they're very personal about each order. Almost TOO personal, the last time I ordered from them I had to e-mail them on 3 separate occasions just to let them know why I needed my item shipped SAL instead of EMS, before they finally let the item get shipped SAL =w=;
Celga
Pros:
-Service on more personal level
-They have some pretty cute omake available depending on the occasion, check their facebook to see what they have
-Smaller userbase, so limitations are not as much of an issue
Cons:
-Everything is handled automatically, which slows down the process
-Full price has to be paid upfront
There's my limited experience XD;;; I'm totally welcome if anyone knows better places than these 2 for the reasons given o3o
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SuToCorp
This place also looks like a potentially useful one since they only have 8% service fee (minimum 1000 yen) + 300 yen bank fee (much simpler system to calculate with), just um... I can't figure out how to access their order form LOL (it seems to be broken?). You'd probably have to contact them manually. Oh, also they only ship with EMS which sucks when you can get much better rates with SAL most of the time.
onkei_kun and I had a last-minute run-in with them last week to get WebMoney from them, and they got back to us within an hour, with smooth service :o
Reply
Tenso & Buyee
Pros:
-Automatic system
-Cheap fees (cheaper than SMJ as far as I can tell)
Cons:
-They only ship using EMS with only the exception of lithium batteries (then they use UPS)
Odd thing though, I don't see anything on their site about how long you can keep items in their warehouse (particularly in the case you want to make multiple orders over a course of time and use consolidated shipping). SMJ clearly states up to 60 days in Japan and 90 days in US.
Reply
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