So, You Want To Buy Japanese Armor From Yahoo Japan

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I have a lot people ask me how to buy Japanese armor directly from Yahoo Japan. They want to cut out the middle man and be able to find and select what armor item they will buy rather than depend on Ebay or a dealer who in many cases gets at least some of their stock from Yahoo Japan already.

 

If you think you know enough to find and bid on armor items or if you have someone to help guide you I say go for it, it is fun and not actually as hard as it seems, I have been buying directly from Yahoo Japan for years and have shown many people how to do it how including people who now re-sell items they buy from Yahoo Japan.

 

The first thing you need it a link to yahoo Japan's armor category

 

 http://category.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/list/%E7%94%B2%E5%86%91%EF%BC%88%E5%85%9C-%E9%8E%A7%EF%BC%89-%E6%AD%A6%E5%85%B7-%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF-%E3%82%B3%E3%83%AC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3/2084259485/?select=06&p=%E7%94%B2%E5%86%91%EF%BC%88%E5%85%9C%E3%80%81%E9%8E%A7%EF%BC%89&tab_ex=commerce&auccat=2084259485&n=100&slider=0

 

I would suggest watching a few items that interest you and see how much they eventually sell for, this will help if you decide on how high to bid when you actually decide you want to bid on something. A few things to know....even if you are the highest bidded you may not win as the seller can abruptly end the auction before it is over if they feel the selling price is to low....auctions continue until someone stops bidding, which means that if someone puts in a higher bid than yours in the last few minutes or seconds the time re-sets and the remaining time will be several minutes more, so do not walk away at the last minute confident that you will win, also you will need a buying agent to bid for you and to ship any item you win to your home, you can not bid through Yahoo Japan...and you will need a Pal Pal account in order to transfer the amount of your bid to the buying agent.

 

Buying agents...there are several buying agents available, I will list the three that I have used sucessfully but you can find your own, all agents charge a percentage of your bid and charge for shipping, this is their profit, you have to look at their fees which they list on their sites. In order to use a Japanese buying agent as I mentioned you will need a PayPal account, you will also need the item number of the item you want to buy, this can be found at the end of the items url and looks something like this 216744508 or like this o144505097, if you register with a Japanese buying agent you will enter the item number in their Yahoo Japan bidding page and the amount of your bid. You will need to transfer money to the buying agent before you can bid, if you do not win you can leave the money in your account for the next time or you can have it refunded back to you.

 

Here are the buying agents I have used.

 

My first recommendation would be Kelly Schmidt, you can reach him at schmidt_araki@ybb.ne.jp Kelly is a Canadian who lives in Japan, he has a mailing list that he sends out frequently that lists items he thinks will interest his customers, you can ask to be added to his list. Since Kelly speaks both English and Japanese he is often quite helpful when additional information is needed from a Japanese seller, I have used Kelly for a number of years, I have purchased some very expensive items through him and they all arrived safely to my house. If you find your own item instead of using his service to pick for you his percentage is 15%, otherwise it is 20%, this may seem high but compared to the markup you would pay a dealer it is not out of line. You need to arrange how you will pay in advance with Kelly. Kelly is not an expert and does not pretent to be so do not expect him to tell you if the item you want to bid on if worth it, you need to decide that on your own.

 

My second recommendation is http://japamart.com/, one thing I like about them is that they will double you deposit for items that are not to expensive, which means if you deposit $500 they will let you bid $1000, if you win over your deposit you will have to transfer the balance owed to them within a few days. All items I have bought through them have arrived safely and they do communicate back when a question is asked. On more expensive items they will ask for you to deposit the full amount of your bid.

 

My third recommendation is http://www.jauce.com/ This is the first agent I used and they are reliable but occasionally when I needed to add additional money to my deposit at the last minute their system took a long time and I lost the auction, also occasionally when their system was really busy I could not bid at the last minute and lost. Everything I bought through them arrived safely, if you plan on buying multiple items they will store them for quite some time and they will ship all of your items in a single box (if they all fit) which saves you shipping costs. They communicate ok when asked a question. I do use their Yahoo Auction search to initially find items as I like it better than the Yahoo search. If your register with them they allow you to save items you are interested in and I use this to keep track of items even if I will be bidding with another agent.

http://www.jauce.com/category-leaf/2084259485?select=22&n=100

 

When looking at items, if the photos are not clear and detailed enough for you feel confident that the item is authentic and in good shape just skip it, there will always be another item, also there are some dealers on Yahoo Japan who regularly sell items, they provide very good, detailed photos, and carry good quality items, after awhile you will remember them, Kelly has a list of Yahoo Japan sellers on his email list with links, it is a good idea to learn which ones constantly sell good quality items and check their stock regularly. If you need help in evaluating an item you can post it here and you will probably get some good feed back or you can try sending one of the active members a private message asking their opinion.

 

 

If anyone has any further questions you can ask here or send me a message.