So after a long wait I finally finalized my purchases on Buyee and had them sent. I’ve received 2 out of 5 packages so far. I think the other 3 are held up somewhere in NY (or NJ? I forget… >.>; )
For those of you unfamiliar with Buyee I’ll give a brief explanation.
Buyee is a Japanese purchase proxy. It’s compatible with the Yahoo! Japan Auctions, Yahoo! Shopping, Rakuten, ZOZO, and AKB48. (I only use it for the Auction feature for out of print Rilakkuma goodies.)
Buyee is part of Tenso so it’s legit. Like Tenso, using their service comes with fee’s. For their auction service it’s a flat 200 yen fee for fund transfers plus 500 yen service fee for every puchase 5,000 yen and under and anything over 5,000 yen is 10% of the final purchase price (so a 6,000 yen purchase will have a 600 yen service fee, etc.)
I expect Buyee to up their service fee some point in the future to 15% simply because they state that the 10% fee is a special opening price.
Buyee offers other services such as package consolidation in case you buy more than one package and want to try to save on shipping (which is not guaranteed. You may end up paying more.) They also have a protective packaging service. Both come at additional costs which you can find on their site.
Depending on package dimensions and weight they have a variety of shipping services available. EMS, SAL, AIR, etc. Shipping fees also include domestic shipping fees as well from the seller to their warehouse.
Now for the review part! 😀
The website is straight forward and easy to use (which is the main reason why I decided to try this out as my first proxy). I made multiple purchases for my first test run of the proxy. Bidding was a smooth process and simple. I was able to instantly buyout for certain auctions and participate in real-time last minute bidding wars (LOL). After winning these items my bank card was instantly charged and a few days later my items arrived at their warehouse.
Now the cool thing about this service is that they will hold your items up to 90 days at their warehouse. I took advantage of this and let them hold mine for about 30 days before I decided to pay for shipping while I saved up a little more money.
Now about package consolidation…
Buyee provides a shipping estimation tool that allows you to input the item weight, domestic shipping fees, item value, etc. to give you an idea of how much it would cost to purchase an item and have it shipped to you. However, the shipping tool only gives an estimate for EMS. I used this tool to give me an idea of shipping costs.
I split my purchases into five packages. Three I had shipped individually (SAL). The other two I used their package consolidation services.
Unfortunately, the first package that I used their consolidation service for didn’t reduce shipping costs despite using the estimation tool. It actually went up approx. $15.00. To try and compensate I used SAL shipping over EMS but it would have been cheaper to have had them shipped individually with SAL instead.
The second package I used their consolidation services for did end up saving me money. Originally I was going to ship it SAL but after consolidation EMS was actually cheaper (surprise!). I ended up saving 20$ compared to having the items shipped individually and with SAL shipping.
In the end I ended up neither losing or saving money on shipping. Doh!
Phew. I hope that wasn’t confusing. Haha!
One of the nice things about Buyee is their repacking system. Regardless of what you buy and how it’s packaged originally, they’ll repack the item before shipping it to you. One of my large shipments contained several packages sent in paper gift bags (yes, paper!!) so I was worried about some of my individual packages (because we all know how brutal the mail system is). Thankfully, Buyee took care of this by repacking my items for me. I would find this out when my first individual package arrived. Upon opening I found another paper gift bag with the original shipping labels attached. (I forgot to take pictures but I’m sure you get the idea. Haha.)
All in all, I was a little worried about using Buyee because of one or two sour reviews on the net. But then again, I purchased soft plush items that don’t really break during shipping so I can’t give a review on how they handle breakable items. Overall, I was pleased with their service and will be using them again in the future. I would only advise to be aware of fee’s associated with purchases using their service. Also I recommend taking a careful look at their FAQ before purchasing anything, otherwise you may be hit with other fee’s (such as protective packaging fees) without your knowledge.
Buyee is a more expensive avenue for import purchases so if you’re able to buy something without a forwarding or proxy service I would suggest using that instead (such as Rakuten or HMV.) However, it may be a necessary evil if you’re looking for out of print or hard to obtain Japanese items.
TIP: One of the easy ways I like to quickly estimate fees + shipping costs is to tack on about 1500-2000 yen on any purchase I make. Many times I’ve been tempted to purchasing something on the Y! Japanese Auctions, thinking I’ll be getting a good deal, but after tacking on that extra bit I end up stopping myself, realizing that I can likely find something similar on ebay for less. Haha.
Anyways, I hope this review helped those who are considering trying Buyee out.
mamakuma 