Gauging interest in potential Rakuten group buy

[bartre]

Well, the group buy with the flash carts seems to have gone pretty well.
As some of us have found out, Rakuten has a global site, which i've had pretty good experience with so far.
the site, specifically the PCE section is:
http://global.rakuten.com/en/category/toys_games/video_games/pc_engine/

the problem is, shipping from Japan is rather expensive, at least for a single item.
is there any interest in putting together a large order from multiple people?
I would be willing to do the bulk of the work, including ordering and shipping.

any thoughts or feedback?

[Ji-L87]

The thing you have to watch out for when using Rakuten is, the store that have most game stuff (also anime stuff), as you can see there, is Surugaya a-too and they only ship through EMS. And EMS starts expensive and just gets more expensive the more you add. Please note that when shopping through Surugaya a-too, you do not see the cost for shipping when you check out. Rather, some day later you will recieve a mail from them with the total cost, shipping included, asking for order confirmation. That's why it's a good idea to keep track of the weight of the items when making your order.

Here's a price list:
http://www.post.japanpost.jp/english/fee/intel/ems.html

Though, PCE games don't weigh that much, so it may work out still. Because of my geographic location I'm probably not going to participate in the group buy but I'm planning to do some shopping there myself when payday arrives.

Edit: Just remembered I wrote about this a few months back:

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, I don't know if a group buy on shipping actually works. You'd have to be extremely strategic about it. Not worth the effort, IMO.

The stuff I've bought from Surugaya via Rakuten was so f*cking cheap I was glad to pay the shipping. I've made two orders with them. One went perfectly, the other wasn't as perfect.

Basically, I ordered some stuff, the biggest thing in the lot was the Gundam Master Grade Movie LD box. They sent me an email saying, "The item is missing the certificate". I looked up some pictures of what came with this box and decided that I didn't need no stupid certificate. When I got the box of stuff it was...a lot thinner that It should have been. The other items (Galaxy Express 999 Galaxy Box and Royal Space Force Memorial Box) were perfect but the Gundam box...? They sent me...disc 8. Yeah, just disc 8. No photo CD, no outer box, not book, no discs 1-7.

OK, now if you look at what I payed for this thing, about $10, you'd say, "Dude, are you stupid? A $300 LD box for $10, of course somethings up and its worthless!" but its not that easy! I just bought the entire Mobile Suit Gundam TV series, both box sets, which was way more expensive, for like...I don't know, $35 or something, so for the most part you do get INSANE deals from this place. The problem is that the photos are stock (and puny) the descriptions are non-existent and you really don't know exactly WTF you are going to get.

For the record, if you were to only have one LD from the Master Grade box, LD8 actually is the best one to have. It contains one side of old trailers, GunPla TV ads, and the footage they made for the Saturn game in (obviously) much higher quality. I'm...a little pissed though, and now I'm really skeptical about anything else I get from them. I have every intention of spending a lot more there in the future though.

[Ji-L87]

The problem is that the photos are stock (and puny) the descriptions are non-existent and you really don't know exactly WTF you are going to get.

Yeah, they could really work on their item thumbnails. They really are extremely small and missing more times than not. It can be seriously hard to do some window shopping because of this and the gibberish that is the machine translated titles doesn't help either... 

That said, it seems that their LDs are always on sale or something, insane prices. Just shame about the shipping, really.

For the record, if you were to only have one LD from the Master Grade box, LD8 actually is the best one to have. Smile It contains one side of old trailers, GunPla TV ads, and the footage they made for the Saturn game in (obviously) much higher quality.

Yeah, I love stuff like that. The first episode of Birdy the Mighty has this trailer/commercial-thing for a horse racing series I've never even heard of. The commercial was animated but I'm not sure it is an actual anime series, might just be an animated trailer for a manga. They mentioned a magazine in there which I don't remember. Just fun to see none the less, like a surprise time capsule.

[Samurai Ghost]

Yeah I order a lot of stuff through Suruga, and have generally had great experiences with them, but they can screw things up at times. Once they sent me the wrong game, and I didn't get any response when I asked them about it. But it was an easy mistake (a loose Hani in the Sky instead of a loose Hani on the Road) and it was only like $3 so just kept it and reordered the one I wanted. It's hard to tell about condition though. After you place the order they will send you a list of the items and their condition. Sometimes if they are really bad they will knock the price down a bit, other times they will say it's fine and a kind of beat-up looking copy comes. Other times you'll get something that's practically brand new. It's kind of random. I think they use stock photos because they are constantly getting in stock and shipping it out, so they don't keep any one copy for very long. But the prices are so good for more common games that it's worth it a lot of times.

[Frank_fjs]

They do use stock photos for most things. I wanted to buy something and asked to see pictures first, and was told that I would have to pay for the goods first and then they would send pics. Not really how I like to do business so I try to shop elsewhere now.

I do shop from other sites that use stock photos, but they've always been accurate with their grading system so I can order with confidence. Surugaya is rather random and being forced to use EMS makes it too expensive to risk in my case.

[soop]

Yeah.  The problem I have is that EMS seems much more likely to get charged by customs, so not only is it more expensive to ship, but... well you may remember me complaining about that.  It's basically£80 worth of games for about £40, and then £60 for shipping and handling >___<

Oh, plus, I'm in England, so I'm instantly ruled out.

[Ji-L87]

I do shop from other sites that use stock photos, but they've always been accurate with their grading system so I can order with confidence.

And which shops are these, if you do not mind me asking?

The problem I have is that EMS seems much more likely to get charged by customs, so not only is it more expensive to ship, but...

I luckily haven't had the problem with EMS getting stuck in customs (but the british custom policies probably differs a bit from ours), rather, they tend to get stuck somewhere else. If the postal service "fails" to deliver (as in, no one home, postman can't be bothered to properly check or ring the doorbell) the shipment gets sent to a place normally intended for business post. And they recently changed their opening hours for the worse, so I can't pick it up while I'm out driving past that very place during work hours. This really bugs me because there is another place where I usually go to get my packages and such, much closer to both where I live and work. Somehow EMS is an exception.

[soop]

I luckily haven't had the problem with EMS getting stuck in customs (but the british custom policies probably differs a bit from ours), rather, they tend to get stuck somewhere else. If the postal service "fails" to deliver (as in, no one home, postman can't be bothered to properly check or ring the doorbell) the shipment gets sent to a place normally intended for business post. And they recently changed their opening hours for the worse, so I can't pick it up while I'm out driving past that very place during work hours. This really bugs me because there is another place where I usually go to get my packages and such, much closer to both where I live and work. Somehow EMS is an exception.

I have exactly the same thing.  If it's SAL, it either get's shoved through my door, or ends up at the post office around the corner, where I can just rock up with a cup of tea saturday morning.  If it's EMS, it means a day off work to pick up the package, or a trip to the middle of knowhere if I can get a lift.  And customs charges and handling for the inconvenience.

[RegalSin]

EMS honeslty is not that much. The most I paid was -200 at one time. However EMS pays especially with delicate items. I feel so stupid when I buy something and it comes broken in the mail, and they are like "sorries, no return".

[Ji-L87]

EMS honeslty is not that much. The most I paid was -200 at one time.

200 what? Dollars? Euro? Pounds? 200 in any of these is quite a lot of money to me. 

[esteban]

EMS honeslty is not that much. The most I paid was -200 at one time.

200 what? Dollars? Euro? Pounds? 200 in any of these is quite a lot of money to me. 

  200 regals, of course.

[BlueBMW]

Ive spent $200 for EMS shipping... but that was for a box containing a Laseractive amongst other items. 

[Nando]

Prices seem fair, how would you do the shipping?

[bartre]

well, IF there was interest, i'd place the order, split the shipping among everyone dependent on the amount order.
from there, i'd ship it out from my house, and charge the actual shipping to each individual.