PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
Non-NEC Console Related Discussion => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: 77FordTruckMan on July 28, 2016, 06:12:51 AM
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I just signed up with Japamart, and I've won a couple of auctions. I ended up paying $17.69 for a 499 Yen ($4.93) item, after all the fees/commission and shipping to Japamart. I will also have to pay to have it shipped to me once they receive it. Anyone know of a cheaper alternative?
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That's fairly standard across the board. You always pay double shipping then some small fee. Goody japan is a little better on fees I think. I sometimes use Celga, but really they can be close to the same.
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Regardless of the proxy you will almost always get raped on fees when it comes to small/cheap items.
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I see, thanks for the tips guys.
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I only use Yahoo Japan for items I can't get off of ebay, rare stuff, lots, arcade parts etc. Don't expect to get a deal on anything cheap. If you want to buy multiple games buy from rakuten, surugaya, amazon.jp since most proxy services only charge you a one time fee to shop and you will only get hit with domestic shipping in Japan charges once. Buying from Japan is not cheap by any means unless you are really savvy at it
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From what I've heard in the model kit and Tamiya R/C forums I visit, they had the the same experiences with such proxy services.
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You bought a $5 game. Most services have flat fees. Shipping doesn't scale linearly. These things all added up.
I buy lots of shit from YAJ, usually Laserdiscs, which are very heavy. Two LDs and packaging is easily over half a kg. You have to take major advantage of the warehouse systems of these places. Use seamail if you are cheap. Pack the boxes logically. It takes, whatever, $10 or so to get a game shipped from Japan. However it might only take $11 to ship two. However if you need to move a few hundreds lbs of shit at once then you'll be moving into freight territory which causes the price to spike per lbs again until you start to become limited by the price of a shipping container. For example, it costs $3500 to ship a Supra, but it costs the same to ship two Suzuki Altos because they'll fit in one container and containers are charged the same regardless of weight. This same concept continues even into space exploration. If you want to send a rat into space it can be squeezed onto someone else's shuttle for one price but if you want to ship a 100' mecha rat you're better off chartering your own heavy moving rocket.
Once the inefficiency one one system starts to spike you'll probably notice alternatives. I think they actually teach that in economics courses but sometimes I wonder...
If I buy something on YAJ I expect the end price to double. Yours more than tripled so it can get better but it will always cost more than eBay for the fees and such.
Btw, Verizon now (for some reason) owns Yahoo so in the future we may be calling it VAJ. Hopefukly this won't happen. I already have that issue when talking in forums about the Volkswagon Automotive Group.
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VAJ.
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Shop VAJ for copies of Vajra?
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Sounds like a lot of good advice. Maybe I will order something from Rakuten next and see how expensive it gets just for fun.
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BTW the game I bought was a complete copy of DORAEMON MEIKYU DAISAKUSEN on pc engine, so in the end I'll be paying about the same as Ebay, maybe slightly more and a lot more hassle, but it's all in good fun.
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I use From Japan myself, and typically only when buying from there will be cheaper than eBay (recent example: a JPN copy of Silhouette Mirage that was $35 vs $45 on Amazon and $55 on eBay).
As long as you are smart enough to research shipping options and search for Japanese titles vs using romanized titles, it's a straightforward easy-to-use service.
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BTW the game I bought was a complete copy of DORAEMON MEIKYU DAISAKUSEN on pc engine, so in the end I'll be paying about the same as Ebay, maybe slightly more and a lot more hassle, but it's all in good fun.
Doraemon is slightly cooler than the "dude" sprite found in the NA Cratermaze
:)
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I like the Dorabian nights game. The crater maze one reminds me of a game called Heiankyo Alien I used to play on the Gameboy.