My experience using Buyee to shop stuff from Japan
I've been using proxy service to buy things from Japan for years and there are many and they seem to continue to grow. Especially since the yen to cheap compare to the US dollar. I wasn't satisfied with Zenmarket so I wanted to try Buyee out. I find their service fee cheaper since it doesn't charge per item but per order. You have options to just pay the basic fee or pay more for inspection.
When I looked up Buyee to see other people experience with it, there are quite a few who were dissatisfied and it seems to they misunderstood what a proxy service is. They would buy and item and get it but aren't happy with it so they try to demand a refund. And they get angry when Buyee doesn't refund them. So here's a BIG warning on proxy service, you can't return items! They are just a middle man and aren't going to go through the return process over your items that you want to return. please keep in mind this risk! Don't go using it to buy something expensive or rare on the auction site or mercari since it might be a scam. Mercari now offers listings directly from Japan now and Mercari may be more willing to give you refunds.
What I find useful with Buyee is that they have discounts. Before mercari opened up internationally, I would use Buyee to buy from Mercari. And would take advantage of their discounts for Mercari as well as Rakuten. You can order from within their site or use their extention to add things to your cart from the shopping site itself. I personally like going through the actual site to shop since not everything gets listed on Buyee when you try to search for it.
Buyee has a separate page with all the items you put in your cart and it divides them by store. It also tells you how much it will be in your currency. This price does change with the exchange rate too.
Once your complete an order, the order will move to a different page with status bar for when they buy it to when its in the warehouse. Once it reaches the warehouse it will start a countdown timer on its free storage days. It will also tell you an estimated weight and price for shipping it internationally.
And once you paid for international shipping your order will again move to a different page to track your shipped items. So far I have good experience with Buyee. None of my items arrived damaged or missing. I do wish they had DHL as a shipping option. Most of my packages were shipped by EMS which is pricey sometimes.
You can also have them order from a shop not supported by their extension which I have done. Even on sites that have a competitor proxy service pop up on it. But there are some shops that don't allow proxy services. I tried to order from TORCH TORCH and it was canceled because of that. This process does take longer than buying from Mercari or Rakuten. And it put into its own cart page separate from the others. But it will go to the same Ordered and Shipping page.
Customer service so far I've had a good experience with. They mostly contacted me about my order that I'm missing a detail. Once was a shirt that had a personalized option that I didn't fill out. And another time was about chocolates I wanted to buy but since the weather was warm it required ice packs.
Overall I am liking Buyee and will continue to use it!
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