Anyone in Japan willing to shop and ship?

[spenoza]

Yeah, it's one of those questions. Anyone in Japan right now willing to procure and ship items to the US which are prohibitively expensive to purchase inside the US or through more traditional international retail channels? Finders/service fee would be provided and payment in advance to those willing (and willing to be reliable).

Looking for some Japanese poster frames (JPN B1 posters are prohibitively expensive to frame in the US) and perhaps a few other odds and ends.

[soop]

Yeah, it's one of those questions. Anyone in Japan right now willing to procure and ship items to the US which are prohibitively expensive to purchase inside the US or through more traditional international retail channels? Finders/service fee would be provided and payment in advance to those willing (and willing to be reliable).

Looking for some Japanese poster frames (JPN B1 posters are prohibitively expensive to frame in the US) and perhaps a few other odds and ends.

Also interested if Samurai can't hook me up before he leaves.  Obviously I'm happy to add extra for effort, but I'd like someone trustworthy (i.e a long-standing member).

[PunkicCyborg]

You could always use a Proxy bidding service to buy on Japanese webpages and YJA.

[Frank_fjs]

You could always use a Proxy bidding service to buy on Japanese webpages and YJA.

Always ends up too expensive for my liking. They have too many fees nowadays, many of them are hidden too so you don't find out about them until it's too late. Only really worth it for items that are impossible to find anywhere else.

I have a friend in Japan who occasionally helps me out with a YHJ item, and I've managed to score some massive bargains this way. Had I gone through a conventional proxy service, the final price would have been insanely high and in most circumstances it's cheaper to grab the same item from eBay.

[soop]

Yeah, I looked into it, and I decided it was prohibitive.  Besides, hopefully, this way it's win-win as someone we like actually gets the money!

[kamiboy]

I second the notion of proxy bidding always ending up much, much higher than you think. Let me give you an example.

I recently bought Winds of Thunder for 1680 via SMJ which amounts to a raw price of about 20. A bargain, right? Copies of this game usually go for 80-90.

But after the shipping cost from seller to the SMJ HQ in Japan, SMJ commission and the fee for paying the seller the cost is already pushed up to about 40, and that is just the beginning. After that you have to pay shipping for the item to be batch sent to SMJ HQ overseas plus shipping from there to your residence.

At the end when all is said and done you are lucky if you saved 10 overall and you got the item several weeks later than you could have if you just went the ebay route.

Of course if you buy a big batch of things then the final shipping cost will be reduced per item, but overall you are not going to end anywhere near that very tempting low Yahoo.co.jp price that wet you appetite in the first place.

SMJ is useful under certain special circumstances though.

[spenoza]

Well, if there's a member of the community here who lives in Japan who's willing and able to pick up several requests, they could make a day of shopping, shipping, and collecting money from several of the folks here. Could turn out to be pretty profitable.

Then again, they may already have too many folks asking for them to get stuff for them.

[vestcoat]

I recently bought Winds of Thunder for 1680 via SMJ which amounts to a raw price of about 20. A bargain, right? Copies of this game usually go for 80-90.

BIN copies sit around on ebay for $50, auctions are cheaper. Genki has Winds for £35/$55.  Four years ago Game Express had sealed copies of Lords for $10. It's not a valuable game.

[SignOfZeta]

Have you tried Amazon Japan or Rakuten? They seem to have all sorts of mundane stuff like that.

Also, yeah, Winds of Thunder isn't a $90 game. At least I don't know anyone who has paid that much for it.

[shawnji]

I'd do it if I lived a bit closer to a big hub of places that sell retro games.  As it stands though, I have to spend almost $50 US just to get out to Akihabara on the rare occasion that I go and it's a pretty tiring journey.  I also wouldn't want to be responsible for anything happening to your game(s) in transit.

[spenoza]

I also wouldn't want to be responsible for anything happening to your game(s) in transit.

Nothing can be done about that, unfortunately. International shipping carries risks, and those risks are on the buyer. Pay up front would be the rule. When I was in Japan a trade item got lost in international mail and I was the one who got shafted. Ah well.

[kamiboy]

Have you tried Amazon Japan or Rakuten? They seem to have all sorts of mundane stuff like that.

Also, yeah, Winds of Thunder isn't a $90 game. At least I don't know anyone who has paid that much for it.

Whoops, I was thinking of Dracula x, which of course makes my purchase an even worse bargain.

[soop]

I agree with spenoza.  Risk is the buyers.  Also, personally, I wouldn't ask the other end to shop for me, strictly auctions I've found myself, payment upfront.

[soop]

I agree with spenoza.  Risk is the buyers.  Also, personally, I wouldn't ask the other end to shop for me, strictly auctions I've found myself, payment upfront.

Anyone?  I'll give you like $10 for this one-off purchase.

[spenoza]

So have we established whether any of the folks in Japan right now would be willing to at least negotiate over the possibility of assistance?