japanauctioncenter.com

[mackoftrack]

Hi,

I've never bought anything from YJA, and I'm considering giving it a shot. Has anyone used Japan Auctions with 1 click! eBay Japan information before? Are they a safe/reliable option?

Thanks for your input!

[candyflip]

Hi mate - yes, I use them a lot, and they are very safe and very reliable.

Depends what you want to buy though of course - they won't ship anything over the Postal System max weight, which usually means they won't ship a full pachinko machine for you. But smaller items - no issues.

They are expensive though, so you best make sure you really want the items you are going after.

An example breakdown of costs would be the following:

US$49 worth of light items from one seller.
US$10 commission to JAC (more if items over 5000 yen and more again as the buy cost of your items increases)
US$8 shipping from Seller to JAC
US$2 bank fee
US$7 Transaction fee (10% of total)
US$20+ shipping to USA.

Your US$49 items have actually cost you US$96 landed.

[mackoftrack]

That's not bad at all. But what if I want a full pachinko machine? They just won't do it at all? What are the weight limits?

[candyflip]

These questions are easily answered by going to their website - it's all in English. Or you can email them in English and get a definitive answer in English (recommended).

But, as stated on the Pricing page, they will handle larger items by Fed Ex etc, but, "We charge an extra service fee of 50% over the international delivery cost for delivery services other than Japan Post (e.g. FedEx, UPS, etc.)"

Your costs will be greatly increased though as the machine shipping to their depo (not to mention to the USA) will be much larger. So for a 30 kg, 10,000Yen cost machine, the total charges would be something like (and I'll keep it in Yen to be more exact) :

Machine - 10,000 yen
Service fee - 1,600 yen
Depositing Money into your account fee - 40yen + 3.9% per deposit regardless of payment method. You will need to deposit (in either one, 2 or more transactions) enough to cover all costs detailed below.
Banking fee - 300 yen
Domestic Delivery fee - actual amount (might be 3,000 yen, depending on distance)
International Delivery fee to USA - actual amount for UPS, +50%. Note: you can only use their FedEx/UPS account, not any private one you may already have.
Additional fees - If re-packing or added protection is needed (at their discretion on arrival to their warehouse), please request a quote for large or heavy items (like whole machines).
You are also obviously personally responsible for any Customs and import duties in your country, all local sales taxes, etc.

I'll let you do the math from there..