Buying jackets on Japanese auction sites

[jeo]

@willyto I live in Philadelphia, USA.

When I bought my Rainbow Country jacket directly from the Mushman store in Japan, they shipped it and I didn't pay any import tax either. Also EMS to the U.S. and then USPS the rest of the way.

Because of that I never bothered to check the customs paperwork on any of my purchases to see what the declared value was.

Since it never happened before I was kind of surprised when I got that email this last time from DHL saying I need to pay import duty. And sorry I remembered $120. It was $135.

I can only think of two possible explanations:

1) USPS. They are severely incompetent.

or

2) From my understanding the seller ships it to the Buyee warehouse. Buyee then ships it to the buyer. So I don't know who is responsible for declaring value. I would assume the seller and all my other purchases were from bigger "stores" on Buyee that do a lot of business. I bought 3 jackets from the seller fashion_daikou. They currently have over 15,000 items for sale. Maybe it's standard practice for them not to declare full value on expensive items. The last jacket I bought was my Tenjin works JS02. It was from a seller that had no past sales and nothing currently for sale.

 

[Blackadder]

easiest way to spot an Ebay proxy is to ask them for extra photos of the jacket. They will reply the jacket is in warehouse or something like that. Not exact science, but a good indicator. Obviously other way is to note multiple listings using the same photos at different price points.

Note this is different that using buyee where you are directly bidding for something via a local proxy.

The ones on ebay are playing margins and basically wait for you to buy, then they will try and buy cheaper from the direct listing, and pocket the difference. This can be hit or miss depending on how quick that transaction happens on the back end.

On buyee, when you bid on something and win, you get it, no question. Plus you save money. There's some exceptions as a lot of jackets are coming from 2nd hand stores. So there's a chance the store sells it locally and never updated the yahoo auction bid.

As I cautioned elsewhere, just make sure you know what you're buying. Measurements, style, etc. Just like there's bad info on Ebay, there's bad info on buyee (yahoo auction really). Except on Ebay you can try and get more info and maybe have an easier path to return items.

But yeah, if you're buying a Schott 118 size 40 or a Vanson Enfield size 42, you should have plenty of reference points to know what that is. Buying a no label vintage jacket, good luck, you're really gambling that person took accurate measurements.

A quicker way is if you see the seller has a ton of other listed items all with different backgrounds.

 

[Guppy]

I've bought a few things from Japanese ecommerce sites, mostly through remambo.jp, more recently from buyee. I like buyee because you don't have to pre-deposit funds with them before you can place a snipe bid, while, recently on remambo.jp, you now do. Before that, they were very good. Wieth remambo. they put in the bid on your behalf, the seller ships to them, then they ship to you. You pay a modest fee (500Y) and the cost of the auction + local shipping + international shipping + import duties + transaction fees. One nice thing about remambo, when you ship to yourself internationally, you declare the insured value on the package. So if you're feeling lucky, you can lowball it and void import duties, at the risk of losing if you do end up needing to make an insurance claim, or if you get caught defrauding customs.

 

[Blackadder]

@willyto I live in Philadelphia, USA.

When I bought my Rainbow Country jacket directly from the Mushman store in Japan, they shipped it and I didn't pay any import tax either. Also EMS to the U.S. and then USPS the rest of the way.

Because of that I never bothered to check the customs paperwork on any of my purchases to see what the declared value was.

Since it never happened before I was kind of surprised when I got that email this last time from DHL saying I need to pay import duty. And sorry I remembered $120. It was $135.

View attachment 298248

I can only think of two possible explanations:

1) USPS. They are severely incompetent.

or

2) From my understanding the seller ships it to the Buyee warehouse. Buyee then ships it to the buyer. So I don't know who is responsible for declaring value. I would assume the seller and all my other purchases were from bigger "stores" on Buyee that do a lot of business. I bought 3 jackets from the seller fashion_daikou. They currently have over 15,000 items for sale. Maybe it's standard practice for them not to declare full value on expensive items. The last jacket I bought was my Tenjin works JS02. It was from a seller that had no past sales and nothing currently for sale.

The local post office is usually not required to handle custom work so if the item arrive through custom to the post office without getting withheld by the custom it would get delivered to you without a hitch.
Courier service is different as DHL and FedEx etc would ask the receiver to declare value and clear custom as standard procedure. I have received notification from them asking me to file for custom clearance even after I already took delivery of the good. I naturally ignored them because there is no import tariff, duty and sales tax (except on tobacco, alcohol and petrol) where I live but if I file, I have to pay a nominal processing fee. Where I live, only businesses file for custom clearance.

 

[dudewuttheheck]

Yahoo auctions is actually quite easy because you can just do it through Buyee. That's what I do. Searching the correct key terms can be difficult, but otherwise everything was smooth for me.

 

[jonbuilder]

I took the plunge even though I am short on funds, buyee responded they would complete the purchase within two days. This is the most I have paid for a jacket but is less than an LW reproduction. I do not get a mutton collar which I do not use even if one comes with a jacket. I will report back in Terry's vintage tread if my order is successful. That Trojan was haunting.

So far the buying process appears to be moving as I expected. The auction site shows the Trojan jacket has sold. The seller is covering shipping to buyee. I paid $100 to buyee in addition to the listed jacket price. $50 for shipping and $50 for a buyers commission and some other fee. I have not yet heard back from buyee they did mention two days to complete the transaction. I would expect that buyee will notify me when they ship the jacket to me and give me some notification when they complete the transaction with the jacket seller. I will post all notices I receive here so other novices like me see the process unfold. I did not notice where I have any shipping options to select or what carrier buyee will use.

 

[tmitchell59]

I did not notice where I have any shipping options to select or what carrier buyee will use.

You will get notification when the jacket is at the warehouse, then you go to the page and choose shipping. Japan Post is not shipping to US, so DHL is the only alternative for a valuable item.

 

[NYDRH]

Where do you live?

Every single item I bought from Buyee has been stopped at customs in Spain. EMS or DHL doesn’t matter.
I just choose DHL because package arrives in 3 days and I make the payment through Online payment when they send the Email/SMS . I can’t be bothered anymore to wait weeks/a month for the EMS packages to go trough the process. I prefer to pay the extra shipping(not much of a difference).

By the way, $120 for a $850 is so low. So lucky!

I once paid €40 to "import" a bottle of multivitamins and my own used iphone into Spain. A real treat lol

 

[Blackadder]

So far the buying process appears to be moving as I expected. The auction site shows the Trojan jacket has sold. The seller is covering shipping to buyee. I paid $100 to buyee in addition to the listed jacket price. $50 for shipping and $50 for a buyers commission and some other fee. I have not yet heard back from buyee they did mention two days to complete the transaction. I would expect that buyee will notify me when they ship the jacket to me and give me some notification when they complete the transaction with the jacket seller. I will post all notices I receive here so other novices like me see the process unfold. I did not notice where I have any shipping options to select or what carrier buyee will use.

I don't understand how you are charged $50 for shipping when you have not chosen the shipping method. You will nomrally only get the actual quote for the international shipping when the item arrived at the warehouse and is ready for forwarding.

 

[jeo]

The local post office is usually not required to handle custom work so if the item arrive through custom to the post office without getting withheld by the custom it would get delivered to you without a hitch.
Courier service is different as DHL and FedEx etc would ask the receiver to declare value and clear custom as standard procedure. I have received notification from them asking me to file for custom clearance even after I already took delivery of the good. I naturally ignored them because there is no import tariff, duty and sales tax (except on tobacco, alcohol and petrol) where I live but if I file, I have to pay a nominal processing fee. Where I live, only businesses file for custom clearance.

If that's correct then that eliminates my USPS being greatly incompetent theory haha although they truly are!

Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that there might be VAT built in as part of the total price when you bid. I've never read or saw that anywhere on Buyee, but maybe the bigger sellers/stores do that. My last purchase where I had to pay the import duty was from a seller who never had a prior sale, so maybe the VAT wasn't included in this purchase price and he declared full value when shipping.

 

[Rgcards]

Hi, im thinking of buying something on buyer. There is a shippi g option for dhl that come to about 150 dollars, or another option call surface mail that is about 59. Any idea what surface mail is and how long it takes? I couldn't figure it out from the website

 

[jeo]

...Searching the correct key terms can be difficult...

I found this to be the case as well. It's definitely not very straightforward searching for stuff.

The best way I found to search for stuff is to type in a certain key term and then go into individual listings and it will show you the breakdown of the search. You can then click each link on that breakdown and it will give you different results.

As an example, typing in "Freewheelers" in the search bar will give you the following results:

If I go into the first two listings, this is what will come up:

Both are labeled under: Real McCoy's>Men's>Outerwear...but if you click the link for "Other" it will give you completely different results than if you click the link for "Racing Jacket".

Once I discovered this, it opened me up to many more items that I otherwise would have never found.

 

[Kalmer]

Just received my first package from Buyee. TBH I’m quite disappointed or even shocked at how it’s packaged, especially compared to the total value —— close to 2k.

Come on, where are those so called “Japanese” ways of doing things???

I bought from a seemingly very established seller on Yahoo Auction. Now I wonder do Buyee help repackage items or will they always
ship them in the original packages? Is this what you should usually expect ?

 

[Blackadder]

View attachment 298441

Just received my first package from Buyee. TBH I’m quite disappointed or even shocked at how it’s packaged, especially compared to the total value —— close to 2k.

Come on, where are those so called “Japanese” ways of doing things???

I bought from a seemingly very established seller on Yahoo Auction. Now I wonder do Buyee help repackage items or will they always
ship them in the original packages? Is this what you should usually expect ?

Buyee? Yes. Happened to me too when I was using Buyee. A RM M422A arrived in paper bag. I have switched to another proxy but not because of packaging.

 

[indigoeagle]

I've ordered through zenmarket and fromjapan as well as directly from retailers like WildOne, Genco and others.
The packages were always packed very neatly in a box.
Perhaps they're overwhelmed now.
ZenMarket two months or so ago had a two week backlog whereas before they ship quite soon after everything has arrived and the shipping fee been paid.

 

[jonbuilder]

I don't understand how you are charged $50 for shipping when you have not chosen the shipping method. You will nomrally only get the actual quote for the international shipping when the item arrived at the warehouse and is ready for forwarding.

if I remember correctly I had a support platform to select and the $50 selection said it included shipping. Am I missing something? I did not save the order page to refresh my memory and have not gotten a statement of an invoice like most of my internet transactions.
edit going back to the auction it seems what I paid is an estimate that is not what it appeared to me when I placed my order. I am on a learning curve but seems along the line of what I have been reading here. Customs is a nonissue for a US jacket re-entering the US. I have two goals here first and foremost acquire a jacket I have been seeking for 15 years. Second, open up new venues to find 1950s and earlier US leather jackets. Just today It was brought to my attention someone found a 1950s black Trojan the same size as the white one I am buying at a considerably less price. I am very happy for them maybe a little jealous, but the point is new markets for vintage US leather jackets are opening .

 

[dudewuttheheck]

That's a shame. My jacket was at a much lower value and came much more nicely packaged than that also through buyee. Mine was actually in a box.

 

[Colin G]

Mostly my items came in boxes, one jacket came wrapped in bubble and in a bag which was fine. At first I thought that was odd but everything was protected. I choose the EMS shipping option once the jacket arrives at the Buyee warehouse and to Canada it is usually only 4 days once it leaves Japan and I never pay fees. Due to Covid restrictions EMS may not be an option presently and only DHL.

Here in Canada we get taxed on everything coming in over $100 but for some reason all items coming from Japan bought from Rakuten or through Buyee shipping via EMS come through with zero import fees and taxes. Only once I was dinged but never prior or since. Declared value is accurate and in Yen so maybe Canada customs are too lazy to convert. Either way I am not complaining since no fees is a nice change for once.

 

[Kalmer]

@willyto I live in Philadelphia, USA.

When I bought my Rainbow Country jacket directly from the Mushman store in Japan, they shipped it and I didn't pay any import tax either. Also EMS to the U.S. and then USPS the rest of the way.

Because of that I never bothered to check the customs paperwork on any of my purchases to see what the declared value was.

Since it never happened before I was kind of surprised when I got that email this last time from DHL saying I need to pay import duty. And sorry I remembered $120. It was $135.

View attachment 298248

I can only think of two possible explanations:

1) USPS. They are severely incompetent.

or

2) From my understanding the seller ships it to the Buyee warehouse. Buyee then ships it to the buyer. So I don't know who is responsible for declaring value. I would assume the seller and all my other purchases were from bigger "stores" on Buyee that do a lot of business. I bought 3 jackets from the seller fashion_daikou. They currently have over 15,000 items for sale. Maybe it's standard practice for them not to declare full value on expensive items. The last jacket I bought was my Tenjin works JS02. It was from a seller that had no past sales and nothing currently for sale.

Mostly my items came in boxes, one jacket came wrapped in bubble and in a bag which was fine. At first I thought that was odd but everything was protected. I choose the EMS shipping option once the jacket arrives at the Buyee warehouse and to Canada it is usually only 4 days once it leaves Japan and I never pay fees. Due to Covid restrictions EMS may not be an option presently and only DHL.

Here in Canada we get taxed on everything coming in over $100 but for some reason all items coming from Japan bought from Rakuten or through Buyee shipping via EMS come through with zero import fees and taxes. Only once I was dinged but never prior or since. Declared value is accurate and in Yen so maybe Canada customs are too lazy to convert. Either way I am not complaining since no fees is a nice change for once.

Could it be DHL shipments are more likely to be charged of duty fees compared to EMS (for US and Canada)?

 

[Blackadder]

That's a shame. My jacket was at a much lower value and came much more nicely packaged than that also through buyee. Mine was actually in a box.

It is a combination of factors. Firstly Buyee do not repack the item if it is a single item and you don't pay the extra for inspection service. Secondly the EMS rate shifts every 100g from 500g while DHL has a pretty flat rate up to a certain weight. Proxy service are more inclined to repack if buyer choose DHL in stead of EMS. So it comes to
1) did the seller pack using box?
2) did you buy more than one item and consolidated?
3) did you pay the premium for Buyee to inspect before shipping?
4) which courier is used?
5) did you pay for Buyee's protective packaging?