Buying shite from Japan an idiots guide

[93fxdl]

Currently buying assorted bike parts from Up garage in Japan, so here's my experience 

You will need to use a proxy buyer in Japan, I have been using zenmarket, but others are available Buyee, Jauce for example 

You are not only limited to Up garage, you can also hunt yahoo auction and other online shops for possible bargains or pure unobtainium 

The costs,

There will be a fee for depositing funds

There will be a fee for buying the item 

There will be a postage cost within Japan 

On my current shopping extravaganza, those fees add about  60% onto the purchase price 

Then there's the packing and shipping to the UK

Keep the total value of the purchases under  £150  to avoid vat and a £12 parcel force fee for collection of the vat. 

If you have your goods shipped by courier not Japan post, the £150 limit will include the shipping costs

Some goods cannot be shipped without lots of hoops jumping through, anything fuel system, carbs injectors, tanks etc also tyres, so those rims you fancy, will have to have tyres removed 

Yes there are some bargains to be had, but when window shopping, double the price to avoid any nasty shocks and keep the shipment value under £150 to save the vat and parcel farce fee

My current shopping basket is ,£159 which becomes £263 once fees are added, then there's the shipping to UK to be added, will be split into 2 shipments to reduce costs 

The fees are not counted for tax purposes 

Ttfn Glenn 

[mark165]

Thanks for that, I regularly browse jauce for old toyota parts and come close to buying g a few items but the uncertainty on the costs always held me back.

Upgarage is a new one for me too!

[93fxdl]

21 minutes ago, mark165 said:

Thanks for that, I regularly browse jauce for old toyota parts and come close to buying g a few items but the uncertainty on the costs always held me back.

Upgarage is a new one for me too!

A Very rough guide, is sale price X2, at least you shouldn't be too far up the creek,low value items can be crippled by some of the fees which while only 3 to 5 , can really add up, one of the items in my order is £2 but fees and shipping in Japan have made it about £20 , but, to buy in UK would be over £40

In my last order I had a Speedo, which cost £160 but plus fees post, shipping and tax ended up, about £240,The only ones for sale on eBay, are north of £800.

For Up garage, have a search on YouTube, plenty of people browsing the stores.

Original bike parts seem to be fairly reasonable prices but anything aftermarket seems to be pretty expensive,  can offset some of the costs by selling some parts on, provided you get them cheap enough 

Ttfn Glenn 

 

[Mrs6C]

If buying complete vehicles is of interest, Goo-Net Exchange is a good starting point. It's a bit like a Japanese version of Autotrader.
https://www.goo-net-exchange.com/

[Imhotep]

I regularly use Buyee for things. It’s really not too hard with them thankfully, their handling fee is something stupidly cheap like ¥200. The biggest issue is shipping, really. But aye, as you’ve said a good rough guide is budget for 2x the price. 

[Schaefft]

I've used buyee before, pretty straight forward for small, cheap items. Anything that dies fit into a medium sized parcel gets tricky though as they have no idea how much it'll cost to ship things. A set of wheels can quickly multiply in costs for example. A wing mirror meanwhile would be no issue.

[93fxdl]

That's 2 more shipments of bike parts about to leave Japan, a mixture of Kawasaki and Suzuki parts.  These will be coming by slow boat, which means they will take between 2 to 3 months to get here, but the upside is, it costs about 1/4 of air freight 

Ttfn Glenn 

[93fxdl]

For anyone wondering about freight costs, here is the Japan post calculator 

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/cgi-charge/index.php?lang=_en

There will be additional handling fees from whatever proxy service you use.

An advantage of shipping by Japan post, is the fees are not counted as value for tax calculation 

Ttfn Glenn 

[scorchio69]

Oh I fondly remember wandering round up garage when I was last in Tokyo, simply couldn’t stop drooling at most of the stuff in there and couldn’t help but buy a few things that would fit in the suitcase.

You can’t tease a JDM fan with a post like this and not show us