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
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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
I've pretty much (when I was buying a lot of hobby stuffs) was only buying from CDJapan, Yes Asia (I've always found that CDJapan was more expensive) (Yes Style for clothing,) Play-Asia, Amazon JP and Nippon Export. I've never really had a bad experience from any of these sites, all in all I've had good communication from all of them when I have enquired about goods/orders
Yeah I wish I researched about this sooner to save my raging. Ordered Tales of Xillia 2 ps3 controller bundle yesasia early as in right after the bundle was announced and up for pre-order on yesasia but I got NOTHING. Yeah I am super pissed at them, the same thing happened last year when I bought the Tales of Xillia ps3 bundle, no nendoroids D: Bought the Kingdom Hearts 3DS bundle from play-asia last time, well it did come with everything I guess, but that's only because everything was contained to the box. But I got taxed by customes so heavily dammit. So now I missed out on TOX's mini novels and Tales of Magazine that I was SO looking forward to so yeah DIE YESASIA. DAMN HONG KONG
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Aw, yesasia's actually a GREAT place to get stuff as long as you don't expect ANY preorder bonuses x_X;; So yeah, I rarely preorder games there, just books, CDs and the like XD; And yes their packaging isn't the best of the places either, lol... some other stores do too much packaging imo though. That really sucks about your ToX2 controller bundle preorder though D: So that means you didn't get the Before Episode book, or what else was missing? I just got my ToX2 from Nippon-yasan yesterday, came with the book and DLC codes
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The before episode novels and the tales of xillia 2 magazine. Those are the only external pre-order bonuses.
Actually I was wondering do those japan only sites accept foreign credit cards? Animate etc. Because if I use say tenso.com, I have to buy the thing myself and just have it sent to their warehouse.
Past buying prioritiessplashNovember 8 2016, 22:59:50 UTC
Gonna leave another comment here just to archive my past "buying priorities", since this changes over time as well. 2012-2014: 1. Anime Magazines Animage, PASH, Prince Animage, Otomedia 2. Inazuma Eleven hobby stuff~ (posters, figures, calendars, cards, puzzles, whatever other oddities have captured my attention) 3. BL novels/manga/doujinshi/reference/piano/art/fan books 4. PS3, 3DS, Vita games 5. Music/Drama CDs 6. Hobby stuff from other anime/games (Plushes) 7. blurays
Re: Past buying prioritiessplashMay 2 2021, 18:20:27 UTC
Up through 2020: 1. Pokemon merchandise (figures, plush, cards, calendars, books, whatever other oddities have captured my attention), FE Cipher cards as of September 2019 2. Google Play Gift Cards for my Fire Emblem Heroes and Tales of the Rays husbando collecting >_>; I do have a steady seller (I can recommend) who offers cards at 11% off and is flexible with any denomination (ex: $100 for $89, also has App Store etc too), but I'm of course always open to better deals. xD 3. Recently I honestly don't buy much else lol... Small dabs of stuff from my 2012-2014 priorities. Various other Tales/Fire Emblem things here and there.
Cipher ended towards end of 2020 so buying for that stopped for that naturally
SMJ rant: Despite what SMJ claims on their FAQs, their fees are actually a bit outrageous. Take for example a recent item I ordered for 2692 yen (converts to $26 with the actual 102 yen rate but third party buyers use 97 yen for their safety net): SMJ internal shipping: 1260 yen Service fees: $8 Processing fee: $3 Total $51.75 + Shipping within US: $14.70 So in total it cost $66.45 to buy an item that was originally $26 (+ shipping, granted but it's still crazy)...
Compared to the exact same item I got from Celga (I was afraid the item would get sold out so I asked 2 places) $28 initial deposit $18 finishing fees + internal shipping $10 shipping from Japan by small packet Total = $56
A complete $10 difference...!! I don't know if I'll ever use SMJ again after looking at these fees...
Comments 18
just a question- can you recommend me a deputy service from japan to america? i've been curious about one :>
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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 ( ... )
Reply
Reply
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
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Actually I was wondering do those japan only sites accept foreign credit cards? Animate etc. Because if I use say tenso.com, I have to buy the thing myself and just have it sent to their warehouse.
Reply
2012-2014:
1. Anime Magazines Animage, PASH, Prince Animage, Otomedia
2. Inazuma Eleven hobby stuff~ (posters, figures, calendars, cards, puzzles, whatever other oddities have captured my attention)
3. BL novels/manga/doujinshi/reference/piano/art/fan books
4. PS3, 3DS, Vita games
5. Music/Drama CDs
6. Hobby stuff from other anime/games (Plushes)
7. blurays
Reply
1. Pokemon merchandise (figures, plush, cards, calendars, books, whatever other oddities have captured my attention), FE Cipher cards as of September 2019
2. Google Play Gift Cards for my Fire Emblem Heroes and Tales of the Rays husbando collecting >_>; I do have a steady seller (I can recommend) who offers cards at 11% off and is flexible with any denomination (ex: $100 for $89, also has App Store etc too), but I'm of course always open to better deals. xD
3. Recently I honestly don't buy much else lol... Small dabs of stuff from my 2012-2014 priorities. Various other Tales/Fire Emblem things here and there.
Cipher ended towards end of 2020 so buying for that stopped for that naturally
Reply
SMJ internal shipping: 1260 yen
Service fees: $8
Processing fee: $3
Total $51.75
+ Shipping within US: $14.70
So in total it cost $66.45 to buy an item that was originally $26 (+ shipping, granted but it's still crazy)...
Compared to the exact same item I got from Celga (I was afraid the item would get sold out so I asked 2 places)
$28 initial deposit
$18 finishing fees + internal shipping
$10 shipping from Japan by small packet
Total = $56
A complete $10 difference...!! I don't know if I'll ever use SMJ again after looking at these fees...
Reply
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