Shopping Services and Auction Proxies

January 23rd, 2010
by misa1

Japan. The land of the rising sun, and cool dolly stuff galore. BJDs, Licca-chan, Jenny, Pullips… Not to mention a plethora of playsets and meticulously detailed miniatures. What collector hasn’t fantasized about unlimited access to all that great stuff?

Thanks to internet shopping and import stores, getting the goods from Japan is easier today than ever before. Even so, most hobbyists still lust after a bevy of “must-haves” which repeatedly elude capture. What to do? One answer is the use of a shopping service. Read on to learn what this is, and whether using one could fill the holes in your collection.

The concept behind a shopping service, or an auction proxy, is simple. Import shops are plentiful, but most only carry things which are guaranteed to sell well. You’ll never have a problem locating Naruto pencil cases, but vintage or niche items are too often another story. These things can be found in some Japanese stores, but most won’t ship outside of the country. The same holds true for sellers on the auction site, Yahoo Japan (aka: Y! Japan). Language barriers and shipping make the majority of Japanese sellers unwilling to deal internationally. Shopping services acts as middle men in these transactions. They purchase items by request, for non-Japanese buyers. The purchase is shipped directly to the service’s office in Japan, before being sent anywhere in world, for a fee. In the case of auctions, a shopping service will bid in your stead, and even translate and relay questions to the seller.

It sounds like a dream come true. For specific items, it certainly can be. But before you rush to sign up, it’s necessary to learn all you can about the process, and the fees involved.

I shied away from shopping services for years, until my “holy grail doll” prodded me to give one a try. I was on the hunt for a Volks Chii SD10. A limited edition from 2003, Chii fullsets can be few and far between on the secondary market. I registered with the well established shopping and auction service “Crescent Shop”. Crescent is known in BJD circles as the exclusive international liason for Gentaro Araki’s Alchemic Lab, producer of the popular Unoa dolls.

Buying goods from a store using Crescent Shop is fairly straight forward. Bidding and purchasing items via auction is slightly more complex, but still quite manageable. Knowing what sort of items overseas buyers generally seek, Crescent features a handy English language search page, with automatic key-word searching for terms like: Dollfie, Licca, Takara, Sylvanian Families, Blythe, Momoko, and more. At the time I registered, My daughter’s birthday was coming up. I decided to take a look at what Licca-chan items were on offer, reasoning that a less expensive item like that would be a test-drive of the service, than immediately snagging a pricey BJD. Within moments of searching, I found a pair of sparkley orange sneakers with Licca decals on them, in my daughter’s size. They were starting at 500yen. I also happened upon the Miki and Maki Preschool Playset, starting at 3000yen.

The first step to auction bidding with Crescent Shop is to make a deposit. The amount of the deposit determines how high you are allowed to bid. The required amount changes, depending on the current exchange rate. Crescent Shop displays a formula for how this amount is calculated. As of last spring when I made this purchase, the minimum deposit one could make was $50 USD. That $50 allowed for bidding up to $200, or approximately 20,000 yen. After placing a deposit, I used Crescent’s automated web form to place bids on my chosen auctions. I won both, each for the minimum amount. Crescent Shop notified me of the wins, but they will not accept payment, until after they receive the items from the seller. Once that happened, my auction account page was updated with the total amount due. I paid via PayPal, and my items were sent out immediately. About a week later, I received my initial security deposit of $50 back into my PayPal account. The items arrived quickly, and were beautifully packed.

Sounds fantastic, right? Well – yes. But here’s the part where I give you the cautionary bits. The fees. To use just the sneakers as an example: $5.00 sneakers ended up being close to $40.00 after Crescent’s handling fees, domestic shipping in Japan from the seller to Crescent’s office, and international shipping from Crescent to my home in the US. This isn’t including the $50 deposit, which was required to bid in the first place. Because, and this is something you NEED to realize, the initial deposit can not be used to pay for your item. Let me repeat that: The initial deposit only secures your ability to bid. It can NOT be applied to the cost of your purchases. It will be returned to you, in full, as soon as you have paid all other moneys owed, and completed all outstanding transactions. I make special note of this fact, because most of us take the concept of a deposit as being something to be deducted from the cost of whatever you buy. Crescent Shop does not do this. That means that you need to have not only the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for your purchase, but also the full deposit amount, plus the shipping and service fees.

Revisiting my beloved SD10 Chii, I was willing to pay approximately $1200 USD for the doll itself. Based on the cost of the doll, my service fee was a little over $100. Shipping within Japan was approximately $20. EMS shipping to the US from Japan was about $60. My initial deposit, allowing me to bid up to my $1200 maximum, was $350. In sum, I needed over $500 more than the price of the doll itself to make the purchase. This may sound absurd, but consider the following: This still came in at nearly $1000 less than what a Chii fullset typically sells for on the US secondary market.

This brings me to what is perhaps the most important thing to realize about auction services. Yes, they can be worth the expense and trouble – but only for certain types of items.

In my admittedly limited experience, services like Crescent are not well suited for small purchases, or impulse buys. As you can see with my daughter’s sneakers, a relatively cheap item can wind up at many times the winning price. I quickly learned the dangers of “browsing” on Y! Japan. You WILL see amazing things. You WILL want to buy them. You WILL consider taking a second mortgage to bring home that mint-in-box Licca dollhouse from the seventies (Never opened! All furniture included!). When money is tight, I stay as far away from Crescent Shop’s search page as possible. On the other hand, if you are looking for something specific to add to your collection, a shopping service can work wonders. This is especially true for limited editions, or vintage dolls and playsets. Even with the fees and shipping, you often end up paying less than you would from a non-Japanese seller .

There are a number of these services out there, and buyers are urged to choose carefully and read every word of small print. Compare fees from service to service. Make sure to study what forms of payment are accepted, how long you have to pay, how the service ships, and return policies. Ask around on forums and find out who else has used the service you’re considering, and what kind of experience they had. I was happy with Crescent Shop, although their deposit policy threw me for a serious loop.

In short, if there’s a dolly item from Japan that you are just desperate to have, looking into a shopping service is worth the trouble. If nothing else, watching the auctions gives one an idea of how much something is selling for in Japan. That’s useful information, even if you don’t end up purchasing through a service.