How do I bid on Japanese auctions? How expensive is it?

I know I'm a bit late to the party on this one... Chaos Theory reigns lately. My question is... Why? Why did you go to all of the expense for this particular item? Is it something that you always wanted? Or is it just something that you thought would make a particularly good video? Definitely seems like a lot of expense and trouble. Can't wait to see what you do with it. As always, fascinating and an interesting cautionary Tale. Thanks, Mat.

These cushion thinggies (instapak?) are quite expensive. One of them costs between 3 and 5 USD in my quick search. Surely one reason for that high price.

Wow, only a week through customs? The Swedish post office take about a month before they even look at your package.

Mat, look back a while. I offered you the Hitachi UK spec version of this CD/MD free - you didn't want it! It's still here if you'd like.

Thanks for making this video! I've always wondered about the mechanics of how you get these items from Japan and I'm glad to see how it works, step by step. From a US perspective, foreign markets are like an alternate-reality. Only instead of "What if Germany had won World War II?" it's "What if MiniDisc had become a mainstream format instead of a niche?" So it's pretty cool to see a CD changer with an integrated MD. As it happens, I recently made my first purchase from Amazon Japan (a "Columbo" Blu-ray that isn't available here). Very pleased when it arrived and it didn't turn out to be a box of dried squid chips. Than you, Google Translate...

Well I've certainly learnt something. I was assuming you were buying directly from the auction site, using some translator over the screen!

Before anyone is allowed to start packing items at Jauce they are probably shown your video about the Pioneer Front Loading record deck to show them how items get delivered in the UK :-)

I was so disappointed when I first started visiting japan since most of the electronic items with menus don't have a choice of English. Even the same models as sold overseas have Japanese only menus when sold in japan. This crosses off most cameras, MP3 players etc. I don't even bother looking at computer peripherals since the prices even for Japanese brands are higher than in Europe. Even remote controls have all the buttons labelled in Japanese which is a bit of surprise almost all products in Europe have English lettering regardless of the country the item is sold in.

I have been using Tenso, by the same company as Buyee, but a pure escrow service. They give you an address in Tokyo you can use for shipping. They just take delivery of your stuff, store it in a locker, and then batch it up and ship it when you ask them to do it. The advantage is that they can ship everything at once for one fee instead of piecemeal. But they don't help you buy anything, that is up to you. I think there is a way to link Buyee to Tenso, but I haven't tried it myself.

Wait. Hold up. There's a "parcel force"!?!?!? That's awesome.

I am always amazed by the amount of surcharges / taxes people in the UK go through to import goods from overseas. The ultimate irony is that purchases from the UK to Japan are actually cheaper than you pay within the UK since the removal of VAT more than covers the cost of international S&H. I just have to work to find the honest brokers that don't pocket the VAT themselves (Amazon.uk is pretty good in this regard, but not all its resellers). Import duties into Japan are triggered over >15,000yen, but even then it is random. This fall I had a massive 14 speaker 150,000yen dolby atmos purchase come in from the US without being dinged!

Loved this video! Very interesting and hilarious as well! Keep up the great work Mat!

I found it very interesting, thank you! You just present so well, Mat, that you bring what could be a mundane subject to life. ‘Waste to energy’ I suspect means it gets burnt - to generate some electricity if we’re lucky!

Hi Mat. great video enjoyed. There is a lp jukebox, singles jukebox, tape jukebox. Was there ever a minidisc jukebox? Think this could be a hit if released as it's one of those instruction videos people look at if they want to do it. Like when I tried to work out how to use coffee machine I brought from bootfair, YouTube told me

You never know though, sometimes it's an obscure video like this that turns out to be one of the most watched of any you ever made! - Youtube is weird and unpredictable!

Waste to energy facilities? Is that another way of saying it can be burnt.

If we viewers aren't interested the video description is very clear what it is, I would recommend putting it up for everyone as it can help a viewer.

Didn't realize that the term "air freight" was referring to the air inside the ridiculous amounts of bubble wrap packing material. 😃 Very interesting cheese sandwich! Jauce seems like a great service. Reminds me of a similar US company, called Planet Express (.com). There are probably others, and I'm sure you're already using them. 😊

I work in an IT department and we regularly courier items, having seen them damaged in interesting ways and often arriving under-packaged I would much rather see more packaging than less but it certainly is an eye-opener. Thanks for the informative video and I look forward to seeing the device in action.

I like the video. But I guess it will be a huge sort of: I can do it better, you don't need to do this, i shall not pay taxes and lots of other advices of people that never bought anything in Japan.

Thanks Mat for the interesting and useful video 😜! I wonder what the customs and VAT costs will be after Brexit... German customs can be fun as well; not only that you have to open the parcel under their eyes; if the sender writes the value in a non readable way (in my case Hebrew), they just tend to estimate it. Too high of course. Best part is that they used to accept only cash (could be different now).

Thanks for clarifying, always good to see how other people are doing this kind of stuff. I don't know how it is in the UK, but a possible huge risk here in Switzerland is that a mistake happens in declaring it for the customs, if you pay too much VAT and customs fees because the package was wrongly declared, it is almost impossible to get a refund for that... I learned this lesson paying twice the amount on fees than the package was worth, because a zero too much was added to the declaration, the Swiss customs here are arrogant assholes: they didn't make the mistake, so there is no mistake, and even recalculating the VAT would already cost more than the package was worth... My lesson: if something is wrong, just don't accept it at the Post office!

> I’m not convinced this video is either A) Interesting or B) Useful Well I thought it was both. So there!

This is a great video Mat, Your experiences are valuable to all of us. Might even give me the courage to try this myself. Some of the JDM stuff was pretty interesting in its day. I brought back a National cassette recorder that was remarkable in its day for having stereo recording--it was early days.

That is useful information! I've been thinking of having a look at Japanese auctions for some vintage gear but seeing those mark-ups, I'm kinda getting second thoughts. Of course my experience is that UK customs are probably the worst on the planet and I live in the USA so the problem might not affect me that much. But still. The packaging was very well done though! It's possible that the people who had to repackage it just didn't have a box that was smaller and still large enough. I wouldn't mind that.

Fascinating, personally I think the film is interesting AND useful. It gives me greater confidence to get thing right when I might in the future get some kit from Japan. Can't wait for the demo of the Sony player!

A service I've been using is https://benlyexpress.com they just give you a forwarding address to use, so it'll work for any local store, not just auctions. It usually costs me about $30 to get things shipped (to California). I'm really happy with it.

I also liked the video. It has a little bit of a „behind the scenes“ nature, which is actually quit great! I would be even interested in more content like this. I have no doubt this would be interesting for the general public.

Oh wow, that video was a big surprise for me, it was a very interesting and also useful if someone buy rare things from other countries. I want to buy my first minidisc deck, and I'm affraid of any international purchase. In Hungary, we have to pay 27% tax for items from non-EU countries if the cost is over 22€ with shipping, and I don't know about customs cost. Once I calculated for something, and with import cost (tax and customs too) the product I wanted to buy costed 2.5-3 times more than the original price. So I hope I can find a working used minidisc deck in my country.

Once I replaced a Sony IFU-WLM3 WLAN module (the size of a small USB flash drive) under PrimeSupport warranty. They sent a ~30x30x20cm box full of sealed air, containing a small box with the thing. They sure love to pack things well.

Great video. Had no idea you could do this. I would release this generally and the only thing I'd change would be the title - something along the lines of "how do I bid for things on Japanese auction sites?" I had no idea it was even possible or that there were intermediaries, etc. Fascinating!

I've never considered buying this way, but it's good info to have if I ever were to try it. My vote is also to release this video as a public service if nothing else.

I've bought a fair amount through Buyee over the years and never had any problems. The payment side of things is integrated with PayPal and completely seamless. Of course, with their fees, shipping and import duty it's only worth it for smaller items that I can't otherwise get in the UK.

I can see from the comments so far the consensus seems to be that the video has some worth - but there are a few sticking points that'll definitely get amplified if it went public. So I'm doing a bit of a re-edit and a re-arranging as well as adding some annotations to make a few parts more focused and will upload this version later.

I'm a regular ebay shopper who tends to avoid sellers that use ebay's version of the middle man - the "Global Shipping Service." Your experience with this massively over-packaged and over-charged item re-affirms for me why. Too many fingers in the pie. I will use the GSP if I'm desperate enough for an item that can't be obtained any other way, but still, one of the main points of buying online for me is to save money, because I'm a cheap bastard. I recognize that these middle-man services are there to make life easier for the seller, but it's too bad that my wallet has to pay for their ease.

This is well worthy of a public post. It is some great information for people wondering about doing Japanese auctions.

Oof, highly relatable. I vote make it public! I've been using Buyee for a while now after switching from Zen Market, I like not having to submit cash before winning. I've considered doing a video like this myself on importing vintage computers and PC game boxes, the cost gets insane with items that heavy and fragile! At least we (pretty rarely) have to worry about import tax and customs fees in the US, that's quite the pill to swallow for collectors in the UK.

What a great video. I believe in a normal shipping world, it would be considered overpacked, but since boxes get thrown around, like it is worth nothing, you really have to package any item carefully nowadays. We actually package that same way, just to make sure every player makes it intact. We double box and use 5cm styro between the first and second box. It does get very expensive indeed. At least $20 for packing materials and a bigger box means higher cost like you stated. The last thing that company want to happen, is that your item arrives damaged. Unfortunately you are paying for that.

Hi Matt, thanks for the video. Like you i've got a love for MD, and i've been looking at these JP auctions but never bought anything from them, always opted for the safer bet on ebay and the like. I think there's going to be a few people that this type of video would appeal too.

Thanks for the video. It was definitely useful. I've never considered buying internationally other than through Ebay.

Well, I found it interesting and, should I want to buy anything from Japan, useful.

If you think that's expensive, try buying anything on Amazon in Germany, from Australia. The shipping cost is easily as much as the item cost.

If this video does well, another video idea would be to order the same item on the same day (such as a new item, there are plenty of) and use the various Japan buying services and show a comparison of how much was the final cost and how well it was packed, and how fast it arrived from each service. So kind of a shootout on which is the best Japanese Auction buying service, something which I have always wondered. A low cost but bulky and somewhat fragile but lightweight item would be a great test.

Extra cheese. Loved it!

This video is super-useful to geeks like me and you, who want stuff that was Japan only, however it may not be your most watched video of all time, as buying things from Japan is kind of a niche audience. By the way, your final Kenwood title idea turned out to be a great choice!

I've bought many things through Jauce and never had an issue. But I can totally understand the over packaging, I bought a LNIB D-VHS player for the equivalent of about £90, by the time it arrived at my door I'd spent closer to £300. I opted for the fragile packaging option which in hindsight wasn't necessary. The box that arrived was big enough to fit me in it curled up (I tried), and contained the expanded foam bags, then another massive box which contained the actual item underneath 4 layers of bubble wrap. They'd even gone to the trouble of opening up the player's box and individually wrapping the deck, remote and instruction books with bubble wrap. Excessive yes but an otherwise fragile item arrived in one piece.

I think the title could be improved by saying something like "Pitfalls of importing JDM electronics from Japanese Auctions". otherwise, I found it very educational because I never considered using a freight forwarder.

I found it very useful

I'm still not sure how I feel about the new outro (Patreon credits). I can't read my name on my small phone screen, and why are there letters in there? (Like x,y,z)

This is why you look for a site where it can do multiple shipping options. This can allow for easier, faster, and cheaper shipping than a site with one shipping for everything (Like you experienced here).

Definitely worth publishing

Consider to change the internal power transformer? Must be worth it if you using it in you hifi system 🙂

I didn't know how to buy on Yahoo Japanese auctions, this video clarify everything's so is worth to put it out on your channel "How to buy from Japan"

That's a good summary of what I've gleaned from you about buying from Japan over the time I have been subscribed to your channel. I'm sure a subset of your normal viewers will welcome this. The others will just wait for the next one. :-)

I used to do shipping for my ex company and the rule was at least 30% for empty space. Also that type of packing tape has been used for Japanese packages for as long as I can remember. It is great stuff.

That was both useful and interesting as I’ve been wondering how these services work.

I use Buyee for buying things from Japan, and it’s wonderful. It not require to add money on your account but to pay via Paypal or credit card if you win the auction (I use it for Yahoo Japan Auction), and they have little shopping fees. Try that site.

I found it both interesting and useful! These are the practicalities in life. Good work! 👍😊

It's definitely interesting! And I'm sure others would also find it useful. Also, neat device. Can't wait for the video on it, as I'm a sucker for anything MiniDisc. (I'm sure it could even be a year before we see it again, I'm just saying).

Having just placed a massive buyee order I can confirm that the economics are very odd indeed - I feel I will end up with items slightly cheaper than I could have purchased locally but with the added disadvantage of a long shipping time! I guess net you have saved and supported a fair array on business along the way so it's good? 🤔

As someone who uses Buyee a lot, I know this pain well. I've also used similar services like White Rabbit Express, but the bottom line is that no matter which Auction Proxy company you go with - the price is going to balloon. Having to pay shipping twice (to them, to you), choosing additional 'services' (Buyee for example offers 3 tiers, such as inspection), getting additional maze-like packaging... a lot of faff, and then Parcel Force sends the letter of dread. The video serves as a reality check for anyone wanting to import - as the price may essentially double by the time it gets to you - and as you say, it is a bit of a gamble. These services are great - but come at a massive cost.

I have bought from Buyee two or three times with some success — in fact I just got a package from them a few days ago. One difference is that they don’t require you to deposit money in an account ahead of time, which sounds like it would be awkward.

Didn't have any plans to buy from a Japanese auction, but if I did find something this would be good information

I've always used Jauce to import my random Japanese Sonic things, and various small car parts, and they've always been great. However I came unstuck with them over a slightly larger car part - it was a pair of wind deflectors, they cost about £40 to get to Jauce's warehouse (including the item price). The price to get it to the UK was over £180! In this instance, I DID tell them to just get rid of the item and I chalked it down to experience. With regards to the video, it's definitely handy to know how it works. I've had loads of people ask me over the years how it works so a video detailing it is certainly helpful.