Buying Collectible K-Pop Items from Yahoo Auction Japan
If you can’t find your idols collectible things on eBay, then the next site you must try is Yahoo Auction Japan (Yahoo JP). Last November, I bought 3 items from Yahoo JP through Jauce.com. They are one of the most famous proxy service company besides FromJapan.co.jp.
Why we need their service? Because foreigner can’t bid on Yahoo JP. Even though you can read Japanese, but they didn’t ship to outside Japan. Through Jauce.com, you search the items you want (they provide English translations) and place your bid real-time.
If you win the bid, the items will be shipped to Jauce.com warehouse & they offer 30 days free storage service. So if you’re going to buy multiple items within a few days, this is really good. You can save shipping fee to your country because they will combine your items into one package.
This is also my first time buying things from Yahoo Auction Japan & using Jauce.com service. So I’m going to share my experience using their service and the total cost I spent. Three items I bought were:
1. VIXX Chained Up bracelet (winning bid price 2,900 JPY)
2. VIXX Error with Leo photo book (winning bid price 600 JPY)
3. VIXX Chained Up (Freedom Version) with Leo photo card & photo booklet ( winning bid price 1,600 JPY)
Except the bracelet, all the bid price seems like very worth it. But! You can’t forget there’s a lot of fee following behind. First, the deposit fee. To be able to place your bid, first you need to deposit enough amount of money to your Jauce.com account. They accept Paypal.
They charged 40 JPY + 3.9% over the deposit amount. This is what I miss at first. I deposit 4 times (2,000 JPY, 500 JPY, 3,500 JPY & 1,000 JPY) because I initially thought will buy 1 item only. But hey~~ you can’t resist the temptation :p So I have to pay 7,452 JPY to deposit a total amount of 7,000 JPY.
The second fee you must pay attention is the service fee. Jauce.com charge 800 JPY + 8% per item you win on an auction. That’s a lot higher than FromJapan.co.jp who charge only 200 JPY commission fee + 5% system fee charge.
But Jauce.com offering discounts if you win the next auction within 24 hours. The service fee discounted to 400 JPY +8% per item. As you keep winning within the 24 hours range, the discount will continue. My first winning bid is the Error album (600 JPY) and I have to pay 848 JPY service fee. Which is quite ridiculous right?
The second bid I won is the Chained Up (Freedom Ver.) album. Because I won it within 24 hours since the first bid, so I got to enjoy the service fee discount. I’m charged 528 JPY service fee for an album priced 1,600 JPY.
But unfortunately, the next bid I won for Chained Up bracelet is over more than 24 hours time range. So for a bracelet priced 2,900 JPY I have to pay 1,032 JPY service fee *sigh*
The next fee you have to pay is the local delivery fee (from the seller to Jauce.com office) and bank transfer fee. The amount of local delivery fee itself differs for every seller. For my case, I’m charged 164 JPY for Error, 300 JPY for Chained Up & 350 JPY for the bracelet. For the bank transfer fee, it’s a flat 300 JPY for every item - which is higher than FromJapan.co.jp will charge.
Last not least, it’s the international delivery fee. I choose the EMS or FedEx option (Jauce.com will pick the least expensive after packing and calculation). I was charged 1,800 JPY for shipping cost to Indonesia using EMS. Until this phase, I have a “debt” amount of 4,022 JPY in my Jauce.com.
Yup! You can have a minus balance until all the items have arrived in their warehouse, packed & ready to shipped. They will ship your package after you paid all the “debt” and order a shipment. So I paid 4,227 JPY (40 JPY +3.9% deposit fee, remember?) for the final phase.
They shipped my package on December 15th and it arrived on 24th December safely. Okay, so let’s make the final calculation. The total amount of money I deposited is 11,679 JPY. That’s how much I spent to buy 3 items with price total of 5,100 JPY.
Overall, it’s definitely a new experience for me (and my bank account T_T). Jauce.com service itself is satisfying enough. Many people maybe thought their service fee is high compared to FromJapan.co.jp. But here’s one thing to note. FromJapan.co.jp charged 5% system fee again from international delivery cost.
So if you won an item priced 600 JPY through FromJapan.co.jp service, you have to pay an estimated total amount of 2,347 JPY. The calculation is based on these factors: EMS cost to Indonesia 1,100 JPY, bank transfer fee 172 JPY, local delivery fee 164 JPY & weigh not more than 1 kg.
Or if you choose to use Air Mail for Small Packet (750 JPY), the total cost will be 1,980 JPY. Please note this is an estimation if you only buy 1 item. The total cost may be different if you buy 2 or more item and weigh more.
So, do you think it is worth enough to buy collectible things on Yahoo Auction Japan?