Discuss shopping services (Japan & China).
Ask your questions here.
>>8845870
I'm so overwhelmed by all the SSs available. How do I go about choosing one? I'm interested in buying from zozo and kera shop
I have a question about Japanese shopping services that let you bid on auction sites.
Normally, I use Buyee a lot, not the cheapest but I like how easy it works and that they only bill you after you've won, so no deposits of any kind.
The only downside is, that they won't let you edit the amount on the invoice.
Sometimes I use from Japan so I can change the invoice on the package, to avoid or reduce customs the high fees we get in the Netherlands.
But unlike Buyee, From Japan (and Japonica) requires a full in-advance deposit (I understand why that is not my complaint).
Because paypal withdraws this straight from my bankaccount, they always put a temporary block on my funds because they actually haven't received my money yet.
This can take up to 11 days which is just really annoying when you lose an auction and refund/release your deposit.
You can't touch your money till paypal has actually finished the whole transaction.
So if I want to bid again, I'm fucked.
What other service only bills you after winning, automatically with paypal?
I'm really looking for one that works like Buyee but lets you edit the invoice like From Japan does.
I hope this made sense, since English isn't my first language!
I have been looking for a shopping service where you don't have to use paypal at all. The one I used to use is on hiatus.
I also really prefer more personal shopping service instead of a company, like the ones there used to be on livejournal (I always used the service of momoirokumasan, she was a darlinh)
>>8845881
Ease, fees, shipping options, etc?
Which ones have you tried out yet?
I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind paying a little higher fee if it means it's really easy to bid or buy without hassle.
I really love Buyee, it's so user friendly, they let you store your stuff up to 90 days and after you bid it's all automatic.
No deposits upfront either. Even has a check service to inspect if your buys are as they were described.
They let you bid on Yahoo!, buy from Yahoo! shopping, ZOZO, Rakuten JP, Amazon JP, Ponparemall JP, AKB48 Group Shop and "Japan Online Stores" (whatever that means).
They are probably not the cheapest, they did reduce their fees and added more shipping options.
You can't edit the invoice though, so if you live in Europe you are screwed, you'll pay lots of tax over your purchases.
I also used From Japan and they are nice.
But the depost thing is a hassle for me.
They offer cheap fees though, checking service, many shipping options and let you edit the invoice (YAY!).
You can bid on lots of sites, like Yahoo! and Mbok, Rakuten (auctions).
They also let you buy from online shops.
They might be able to help you out with Kerashop too.
If they don't, maybe Chibi Tenshi can help?
Or use Tenso?
I'd be interested to hear about this as well desu.
>>8845870
On the Taobao threads Buynosaur has come up a few times. I've placed an order with them, but since it's CNY everything is halted until the 15th.
Has anyone managed to get something in before everything shut down? If so, how was their communication in terms of showing you what the items were like, repackaging, shipping etc? If they're as excellent in every aspect as they are in their communication then I'll be pleased as hell!
I'm using Tokyopirates right now, I haven't won the auction yet but she is nice and responded fast
>>8845971
Drive by comment here. I used Buynosaur and they answered all my newbie questions because I had trouble navigating their website plus website/payment errors when I tried to pay them for my items. The entire time they were super nice and incredibly helpful and when paypal only let me pay part of their requested payment (it didn't seem to factor in their fee + dom shipping) they let me pay the fees when I paid for international shipping and covered them for me until then.
They took pictures of my order like any other SS would do and I'm currently waiting for my order to arrive. Once it does I'll do a proper review in the Taobao thread about packaging and stuff.
>>8846004
Looking forward to that, then!
>>8845904
How do you think the fees compare between Buyee and FJ? I normally use FJ but was interested in Buyee because they have those fee waive specials on orders from Rakuten, but I've also heard they can get expensive.
>>8846031
This is my part 1 due to the 2 pics.
I pulled this from their faq's/Q&A's.
Buyee:
Auction = Yahoo! auction 5% (per item/auction just an fyi)
Shopping = Yahoo! shopping, Amazon.co.jp, Rakuten 0%
Other shopping site 5%
If the total sum is less than 3,000 JPY, the fee will be 150 JPY.
* Items won on Yahoo! Auction will incur a service fee of 200 JPY.
There is also a plan, like when you order a bunch of stuff from Amazon jp.
It appears you can select a 500 yen plan for the entire order, other cheaper plans also available.
This is a new option which I haven't tried yet so I can't really comment on it.
They also offer package consolidation, so if you combine packages that is usually about 500 to 1500 yen depending on how many orders you combined.
Combining usually saves me shipping even when I end up paying a 1000 yen consolidation fee.
You also pay shipping from the seller to the warehouse and shipping to you but I don't quite know if you pay a fee over that as well to be honest.
I made a screen grab of the fee breakdown of an order of mine, which doesn't seem to list the 5% or the 200 yen per item fee?
I'm terrible haha, I know so little about this.
I really recommend reading the guide.
Buyee: http://buyee.jp/help/yahoo/guide
>>8846031>>8847756
Part 2.
I pulled this from their faq's/Q&A's.
From Japan:
Charge 1: (charge 1 is the deposit)
1. Winning Price
2. 200 Yen Commission Fee
3. 5% System Fee Charge (waived for payments made via FJ points)
Charge 2:
1. Domestic shipping (charged at cost price)
2. Domestic Bank payment fee (charged at cost price)
3. International Shipping (possible further discount depending on your rank)
4. Additional fees if applicable
5. 5% System Fee Charge (waived for payments made via FJ points)
So they are very similar.
I prefer From Japan's (fee breakdown) receipts as they offer much better insight.
I also included a print screen of that as well, it might be helpful?
I really recommend reading the guide.
FJ: http://www.fromjapan.co.jp/en/qanda
>>8845998
Let us know when the transaction is finished.
I've always wondered about Tokyopirates, they seem very friendly.
Their fee is on the higher side for physical shopping trips burt that also sounds very reasonable to be to be honest.
I've always wondered about their wishlist service, has anyone ever found their dream/wishlist items by that?
>>8845904
this is super helpful thanks!
>>8847766
I think the wishlist service is a good idea in theory, but it really sucks that all spots for high priority wishlists are already taken and they don't offer any new ones. I don't think that they can keep up with the non priority wishlists. There are hundreds of them already, it's impossible to remember all items, they probably only check the other ones once a month when they have very little to do otherwise. So it's basically useless.
How long does it usually take for Chibi Tenshi to respond to questions?
Any reccs for personal shopping services that aren't Chibi Tenshi or Tokyo Pirates?
Slightly unrelated, but what are some shops for ~quirky~ weirdish Japanese accessories and clothes.
Example like Marisan's bread items.
I can only think of that, thanks a bunch, anons
>https://minne.com/marisan
From Japan has been using heavy corrugated boxes lately that raise the price of shipping, it's total bullshit.
Clobba anon from the lolita gen here -
So they're not located in China right? Another anon said they replied to her but they still have not gotten back to me.
I fear this is because I tried to fix their mess of an order form.
Was I not supposed to? When I opened the doc it was just a bunch of jumbled words with no spaces. Why and how the fuck do I fill out their form?
>>8851335
It usually takes her less than 24 hours to respond to emails, though it took her 2 days to get back to me one time (which wasn't a big deal since it wasn't an auction). She's pretty fast at answering.
>>8851818
Don't use the order form. Just send them an email with the items and your address.
>>8851836
This is pretty much what I did tho?
Maybe they just have a lot of orders.
>>8851335
She usually messages me back nearly immediately as long as its a reasonable hour in Japan and she's not on a trip or something. Longest it's ever taken was 24 hours
>>8851792
Village Vanguard is really good to check because they stock a bunch of different artists/shops.
which SS do physical Closet Child orders besides Tokyo Pirates?
I've been out of lolita for quite a few years so I'm a bit unfamiliar with these company's. I used to have a shopping service in Osaka who I could just email and she charged 10% and that was that, I could decide shipping, payment method and what she would write on the customs forms. She was so sweet always wrote me a short letter with my parcel. But these personal shopping services that were on livejournal seem to have died out?
>>8845900
As far as I can tell momoirokumasan is still active so I think I will give that a try!
>>8845870
>I live in a place where no SS does ship.
>Additionally SS would make it hard to afford shopping, because they're expensive.
One day I'll save enough money to buy my dream clothes from TaoBao
>>8852108
maybe if you posted where you live anons could help? Feeling sorry for yourself doesn't exactly contribute to the thread....
Can any seagulls recommend USA shopping services? I'm a Europoor and would like easier access to American stores, mostly some cosmetics.
I order from Taobao and from Japan through Tenso regularly, so I've worked with shopping services before. I just want to know what USA services you would recommend.
>>8853624
Fellow Eurofag here, I'm curious where you shop that they don't have international shipping services? I admit I see a few where it's still an issue, but it's getting a lot better?
poorfag here. I want to shop from Taobao but i don't want to pay extra commission fees for taobao agents. But actually the thing is, I don't even get what those taobao agents do. like for example you decide to order from 6 different sellers different goods. if you use taobao agent will they get all the goods shipped to them directly first then they ship it to oversea address? or is it the opposite and they just get in charge of proxy communication and the goods get shipped directly from seller to buyer? which option is the cheapest. because from taobao app they do ship internationally so what's the advantage of using an agent.
>>8853649
What the official site does it FORWARD you the packages from the sellers. So you will still get everything in one package. This is the cheaper service.
The advantages of having a shopping service is:
> better communication with foreign sellers
> ability to create bigger orders to minimize shipping fees
> someone to doublecheck your items in the case they come in wrong (color/size/damage)
> more options in terms of shipping (I think)
>>8853653
thank you for answering, you are very kind. I think that i will buy directly from taobao seeing i can converse passably in Chinese. mind if I ask another question?
for example i want to buy a lot of items from this single seller. like... 20 dresses or something. hypothesing that the threshold of shipping fee will increase depending of the weight and dimensions... which option is better (generally) for i want to minimize shipping fee:
seller send one dress at a time. seller ships 20 dresses.
seller send everything in one batch.
Canada economy is very bad so i want to save money!!
>>8853671
The first kg is most expensive, you will definitely want to ship as much in one package as you can. The only exception is large items which might be shipped via volumetric weight, but you won't have to worry about that with dresses. I'm talking like huge pillows, etc.
Are there any shopping services that can buy from Mercari that someone could recommend? I think Japonica can (correct me if I'm wrong) but I'd like to know other options.
>>8853740
I've used kairai. She's a bit slow but she got the job done.
>>8855434
Kairai's a girl? I always thought she was a guy
I guess this is OT but I'm so curious. Does anyone know what Chibi Tenshi looks like? How she dresses etc.
>>8855902
Why would this matter at all?
>>8855902
a dumb bitch.
>>8855917
It doesn't. It'd just be fun to have a "face" to the name. I've used her services many times and yet I know nothing about her. Curious George I suppose!
>>8855923
Don't even start shit.
>>8855749
Maybe? I Donno. I just assumed. Either way they worked and I got my stuff and didn't get ripped off, so all good in my book.
>>8855929
I've been curious as well.
>>8855434
do you have a link to their webpage/facebook?
Retarded question but could I use tenso to buy from fril?
>>8859951
No. You need to use something like kairai.
>>8859959
Ah ok thanks!
>>8853624
I've done USA shopping services before for friends and gulls, but it's incredibly expensive to ship internationally in ways that PayPal will work with (expect to pay at minimum 20 USD, the average is usually around 30-40 USD for a box on the bigger side of medium with tracking).
I charge 5% for online orders, and I can do in-store for many places for 5% plus transportation fees (usually less than $5, just my gas costs).
If you want more info or links to my feedback you can email me at the throwaway above.
