Most of my favorite Japanese stores sell internationally (which is partly why they're my favorites), however there are those special situations and stores that only ship within Japan. Fortunately there are parcel forwarding services available that give you a Japanese shipping address to accept and hold domestic shipments, which get shipped to you from the forwarding service company.
Here's a very short list of the few I recommend looking into. They have a combination of low rates, extended range of services, success (based on feedback of others), and easy to deal with.
Note that under Japanese Law as of 2011, proof of ID must be provided before forwarding services will ship to you. Uploading a photo of a valid drivers license should suffice.
Tenso
http://www.tenso.com/en/No registration or monthly fees for having an account. You pay them with either PayPal or Credit Card: if you have a card with low or no foreign exchange (FX) rates, this is a good time to use it (see more below). Handling fees are weight based starting at 50 Yen for the lightest item. Tenso DOES NOT accept shipments billed by Cash On Demand (COD, POD), so be sure to pre-arrange purchases with the original seller through CC or PP. Additionally, they offer a Buyee purchasing proxy to buy items for you, but the store selection seems limited.
JPN-Depot
https://www.jpn-depot.com/content/services/feesNot as well known, I had to search a bit more to find them. Also no registration/monthly account fees. Currently, they only accept payment through PayPal and bank wire transfer: they charge you PP's 3.9% + 40 Yen seller fee so take note. They have more services available and at pretty low flat fees: e.g. buy-for-me for 200 Yen where they purchase from online retailers for you. I emailed them questions a few times and they replied within a day and seem friendly.
The biggest advantage of JPN-Depot is they accept Cash On Demand (COD, POD) settlements! This is extremely handy for avoiding the foreign credit card conundrum you could potentially encounter with some stores that might or might not accept foreign CCs. Their flat fee of 200 Yen (~ $2 USD today) seems more than reasonable.
For CODs, there are a couple things to be aware of:
- sellers also tend to charge their own commission rate in addition to JPN-Depot's COD fee, typically 2-4% of the item price (varies by merchant)
- JPN-Depot will bill your COD charge through PP or bank wire, therefore you pay the FX rate that you've already set up through the respective institution (see following)
PayPal Foreign Conversion: Beware, Stay Informed!
By now you probably know that PayPal charges a currency conversion percentage fee on international orders. Typically the rate is at least 2.5% which could vary, but the larger problem is the 2.5% on top of an arbitrary exchange rate value they don't tell you ahead of time, you find out after the purchase goes through. From my personal experience, PP always gives you the worst rates at that time. At least credit cards and banks transparently post their FX rates daily and are more in line with the actual exchange rates.
Are there ways around using PP's conversion system? The answer used to be a universal "yes," but as of 2016, now only "sometimes." It is possible with merchants who use PP automatic billing agreements. To do this, you set up your PP account to source your funds to each merchant from a) credit card, b) invoiced in the merchant's source currency: this uses your CC's FX conversion and not PP's, which is great if you have a CC with low or no FX rate! Unfortunately for non-recurring merchants (i.e. no pre-authorized billing agreements), the "more conversion options" at check-out time seems to have disappeared... I am still in the process of investigating this one.
Credit Cards with Low/No Foreign Exchange Fees
In Canada, there are currently two options for credit cards that do not charge foreign exchange conversion fees: the Rogers Mastercard, or Amazon.ca Rewards Visa by Chase. Chase's Amazon.ca Rewards Visa has no annual fees and offers 2% cash back on Amazon specific purchases, and 1% cash back on other purchases. These cards can be used not only online, but abroad as well for those who travel frequently. These options are great ways to save the standard 2.5% FX fee almost all Canadian banks and CCs charge. In the case of Takara Tomy Mall which does not ship internationally, they do accept foreign credit cards (read it on forums): the caveat here is your billing address must be in Japan which likely doesn't match your CC's billing address, but in reality this doesn't actually matter (go figure). This is one way to save extra money while buying those Japan exclusive items for your collection.
for shipping service there is another one called Transbang which is amazingly good and fast! https://goo.gl/bsDBro
ReplyDeleteTRANSBANG’S A SCAM! UNTRUSTRED AND LIAR THIEVES! FOR YOUR OWN GOOD USE TENSO JAPAN OR JP DELIVER INSTEAD!
ReplyDeleteFirst, they decided to RANDOMLY CHANGE the Customs declaration I SPECIFICALLY AND EXPRESSLY provided without even telling me beforehand - I found out by the Customs of my country ITSELF what they did -, which made my parcel be rejected by them and returned. I was needing it urgently and I paid much more to have it shipped via EMS, totally in vain. They did absolutely nothing about that and just preferred to stop answering my messages.
They use the AWFULEST system I’ve ever seen, HORRIBLY translated to English, CONFUSING AND TOTALLY INCONVENIENT, PURPOSELY SO YOU MAKE MORE MISTAKES AND THEY CAN GET MORE MONEY FROM YOU. Because they sent a WRONG payment request, I was obliged to pay AN EXTRA REPACKING FEE and they didn’t do anything about that either.
To top it off, I had to pay a fee for ADDITIONAL REINFORCEMENT which is an optional service that I didn’t request. After several messages and spending much of my energy and time INSISTING I DIDN’T REQUEST IT and they basically saying I was LYING, they then told me that it was another "mistake" and that yes, I was telling the truth?!
I’ve used Tenso JAPAN, Jp Deliver, MANY mail forwarders in the U.S. and in Europe for MANY years and never faced such dishonest behavior from any of them.
Be aware: they’ll try to get as much as money as possible from you! They’ll lie and say you requested services you didn’t and will then ignore your messages! DON’T USE THEIR SERVICES!