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The Great Japanese Online Buying Splurge 2016 Edition
Posted by Ady001,
23 February 2016
·
707 views
The Great Japanese Online Buying Splurge 2016 Edition
NOTE: I am in no way endorsing the service I am citing in this blog entry; I am merely telling an anecdote, which I think may be of no interest to any passing readers, but is still worth telling anyway. Feel free to use the service at your own discretion. Also, please be guided that some of the pictures I have posted here can be huge. They may take up some loading times. I've decided to thumb them to save bandwidth.
It was Christmastime 2015. With a flood of bonuses, like in 2015, I went on a Japanese online shopping spending spree, but this time, instead of CDs, I went for a variety of stuff like photosets, photo albums, and books. While my vow last year to atone for my spendthrift ways had not fully materialized, rest assured
that I'm on my way there.
One of the first things I went for were the Yamashita Emiri photosets in Suruga-ya. I went on bulk-buying and finishing each and every piece off the website. While I just started photo collecting, I doubt that I could sustain this kind of hobby, thus, I'll probably buy it off whenever the budget permits.
I ended off buying around 20 pieces and whittled down their stocks to as little as 13 items, though they managed to stockpile more photos in their inventory as of this writing, they don't come off cheap this time:
By the way, the yellow photo album that came along with it was supposed to house the A5-sized H!P photos that I ordered from their online shop. To my slight dismay, it was an A5-sized photo album that houses 2 L-sized photos. It would've been perfect for a solely Rikako photo album (I specially ordered Yellow because of this.) Despite this though, the albums were a good buy especially for the AKB48 photosets which fit in well and the next batch of photosets, which I ordered next:
Around new year, I chanced upon a twitter post about a 54-piece stack of Rikako photosets available for bidding in Yahoo Auctions. These were the sets taken at a Nama Tamago event in 2013. While these sets were not alien to me and surely, these ones were filed on the Rikako Photo Bank online, I was hesitating to enter into such deals thinking that the bid had already lapsed. However, when I found the specifics of the bid, I decided to say to myself that I need to get it.
Scouting for some good proxy auction sites, I chanced upon two, but I ultimately decided going for Buyee. The other one, FromJapan, required me to put a deposit to their service, which is not my cup of tea.
While the bidding for the Rikako photosets were not particularly fierce, I was a bit paranoid about getting it; the 240 Suzuki Airi photosets that I endorsed to a friend suddenly had its 2,000+ yen bid suddenly rise to 9,300 yen during the final hour of the bidding session. These sudden spikes in bids could very well happen anytime to any item. Needless to say, I was able to obtain the photoset, damaging me around 5,300 yen in process.
My deal with Buyee was smooth, they handled it pretty well despite the debit card hiccup I experienced. The item though, had to be redirected somewhere domestically in Japan just because they refused a particular request that will be "unfavorable" for me. It's not their problem though; they have to follow international postal rules.
Anyhow, the photoset arrived on my door without any hitches. And I have to admit that it's a pretty lovely thing, with a pretty lovely thing inside:
During this period as well, I was able to buy some CDs from the used CD shop I frequented on to. I finally got two other Caramel Ribbon indie singles aside from the Depapepe Album for my collection. The best thing about the Caramel Ribbon singles were the signed CD copies. I still wonder why this group isn't getting the boost they deserve since they have good songs:
Because the latest LADYBABY single was coming out a few days apart the Zekkyou-Suru 60-do single in January, I decided to have it bought from the CDJapan website. Because of the fact that my purchase will never get them to the Oricon and with spare points in my disposal, I went with CDJapan. If there's a reason why I'm getting to these groups, it's because of Montero and Kaneko Rie, though I admit that this Zekkyou-Suru single isn't as snappy as their earlier indie release.
On the other hand, while the new LADYBABY single isn't as catchy or may not duplicate the novelty of the first one, I believe it's neat to keep themselves firmly footed. I got the bonus photo from ordering via CDJapan:
I'm making a mental note to order this from Amazon as this single shot to Number 31 in the Oricon charts from Number 106 with Nippon Manju.
Goinng back to Buyee, if there was anything other than their auction service that made me go for them splurging, there was one other good thing that I managed to snag along the way when I used their service.
Apparently, my first time use of the site afforded me with a 10,000 yen international shipping discount, which really enticed me to purchase. This time, I went for heavier items that would really make my wallet weep if I shipped them out myself but I'd really want to buy from Japan- books.
I went to bid for the latest edition of the Koujien, which I also won for 1,600 yen. The thing weighed 3 kilos and it would come out that the expedited shipping will be more expensive than the book itself. Other than that, I bought the last iteration of the "A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar" series as well as another photo album. Along with this, I vouched for a friend who wanted to buy an artbook and 2 mangas, things I'd never offer buying for her just because the thing's just too expensive to ship.
(As for the reason why I chose expedited shipping instead of the usualy SAL for the savings, I'd have to remind you that being in a corrupt third world country, mail/parcels sometimes take a lot of time to reach here and I don't want an important purchase to suck into a post office blackhole.)
And here's what I managed to save. I find it really saved a lot of money for me and this is EMS:
I set out for the customs office 3 days after knowing it'll land there, waited for 3 agonizing hours, and paid a reasonable sum for the items, which I'm more happy to pay for if not for the soul-crushing ride and traffic going to the customs office.
Talk about a big box!
When the package arrived, you couldn't imagine the amount of paper they stuffed inside this thing:
Inside the box is a smaller box. Talk about Matryoshka style packing for the better:
So these two are the main culprits. I mean honestly, I'd rather pay these things right now than wait for the next shipment. It's just much of a hassle shipping them again and besides, free shipping is something you can't say no to!
Finally! My Japanese learning materials had come to a conclusion! Though the Koujien was not particularly what I expected of (there was a separate slim volume that should've come with it) I'm OK with the huge one as a spanking brand new copy of the book costs a whopping 8000 yen:
When a friend of mine went to the US for some RnR and soul-searching, I offered some of my services to her by piggybacking some Japanese orders which will never come off cheap with all the shipping and that. She managed to buy this bulky Detective Conan Art Book along with the Working Mangas with the free Nendroid and a volume she was pining for:
I also managed to find a suitable 2L-sized clear file for the e-lineup versions of Rikako's photos and I'm never all the happier. It fits well, though the number of sheets it holds is limited to 80 and they don't have color yellow:
And lastly, I had this package held up in the forwarder's address for nearly 5 months now and I said to myself "the heck, I'm still going to pay for it anyway," and finally decided to have it shipped here. As usual I went for customs but I never paid duties and at least I finally managed to give a friend of mine the 2nd Country Girls' single. The Elaiza Ikeda Mook is probably one of my favorite reads since the language isn't all that hard and I'm quite intrigued with her. I paid 1 yen for the mook and 357 Yen for the domestic shipping, and it looks fantabulous. The best 1 yen purchase I ever made:
In conclusion, I have spent a lot, again with this year's purchase edition. I will omit how much I spent since I lost count but I'm happy with what I've spent nonetheless.
NOTE: I am in no way endorsing the service I am citing in this blog entry; I am merely telling an anecdote, which I think may be of no interest to any passing readers, but is still worth telling anyway. Feel free to use the service at your own discretion. Also, please be guided that some of the pictures I have posted here can be huge. They may take up some loading times. I've decided to thumb them to save bandwidth.
It was Christmastime 2015. With a flood of bonuses, like in 2015, I went on a Japanese online shopping spending spree, but this time, instead of CDs, I went for a variety of stuff like photosets, photo albums, and books. While my vow last year to atone for my spendthrift ways had not fully materialized, rest assured
that I'm on my way there.
One of the first things I went for were the Yamashita Emiri photosets in Suruga-ya. I went on bulk-buying and finishing each and every piece off the website. While I just started photo collecting, I doubt that I could sustain this kind of hobby, thus, I'll probably buy it off whenever the budget permits.
I ended off buying around 20 pieces and whittled down their stocks to as little as 13 items, though they managed to stockpile more photos in their inventory as of this writing, they don't come off cheap this time:
By the way, the yellow photo album that came along with it was supposed to house the A5-sized H!P photos that I ordered from their online shop. To my slight dismay, it was an A5-sized photo album that houses 2 L-sized photos. It would've been perfect for a solely Rikako photo album (I specially ordered Yellow because of this.) Despite this though, the albums were a good buy especially for the AKB48 photosets which fit in well and the next batch of photosets, which I ordered next:
Around new year, I chanced upon a twitter post about a 54-piece stack of Rikako photosets available for bidding in Yahoo Auctions. These were the sets taken at a Nama Tamago event in 2013. While these sets were not alien to me and surely, these ones were filed on the Rikako Photo Bank online, I was hesitating to enter into such deals thinking that the bid had already lapsed. However, when I found the specifics of the bid, I decided to say to myself that I need to get it.
Scouting for some good proxy auction sites, I chanced upon two, but I ultimately decided going for Buyee. The other one, FromJapan, required me to put a deposit to their service, which is not my cup of tea.
While the bidding for the Rikako photosets were not particularly fierce, I was a bit paranoid about getting it; the 240 Suzuki Airi photosets that I endorsed to a friend suddenly had its 2,000+ yen bid suddenly rise to 9,300 yen during the final hour of the bidding session. These sudden spikes in bids could very well happen anytime to any item. Needless to say, I was able to obtain the photoset, damaging me around 5,300 yen in process.
My deal with Buyee was smooth, they handled it pretty well despite the debit card hiccup I experienced. The item though, had to be redirected somewhere domestically in Japan just because they refused a particular request that will be "unfavorable" for me. It's not their problem though; they have to follow international postal rules.
Anyhow, the photoset arrived on my door without any hitches. And I have to admit that it's a pretty lovely thing, with a pretty lovely thing inside:
During this period as well, I was able to buy some CDs from the used CD shop I frequented on to. I finally got two other Caramel Ribbon indie singles aside from the Depapepe Album for my collection. The best thing about the Caramel Ribbon singles were the signed CD copies. I still wonder why this group isn't getting the boost they deserve since they have good songs:
Because the latest LADYBABY single was coming out a few days apart the Zekkyou-Suru 60-do single in January, I decided to have it bought from the CDJapan website. Because of the fact that my purchase will never get them to the Oricon and with spare points in my disposal, I went with CDJapan. If there's a reason why I'm getting to these groups, it's because of Montero and Kaneko Rie, though I admit that this Zekkyou-Suru single isn't as snappy as their earlier indie release.
On the other hand, while the new LADYBABY single isn't as catchy or may not duplicate the novelty of the first one, I believe it's neat to keep themselves firmly footed. I got the bonus photo from ordering via CDJapan:
I'm making a mental note to order this from Amazon as this single shot to Number 31 in the Oricon charts from Number 106 with Nippon Manju.
Goinng back to Buyee, if there was anything other than their auction service that made me go for them splurging, there was one other good thing that I managed to snag along the way when I used their service.
Apparently, my first time use of the site afforded me with a 10,000 yen international shipping discount, which really enticed me to purchase. This time, I went for heavier items that would really make my wallet weep if I shipped them out myself but I'd really want to buy from Japan- books.
I went to bid for the latest edition of the Koujien, which I also won for 1,600 yen. The thing weighed 3 kilos and it would come out that the expedited shipping will be more expensive than the book itself. Other than that, I bought the last iteration of the "A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar" series as well as another photo album. Along with this, I vouched for a friend who wanted to buy an artbook and 2 mangas, things I'd never offer buying for her just because the thing's just too expensive to ship.
(As for the reason why I chose expedited shipping instead of the usualy SAL for the savings, I'd have to remind you that being in a corrupt third world country, mail/parcels sometimes take a lot of time to reach here and I don't want an important purchase to suck into a post office blackhole.)
And here's what I managed to save. I find it really saved a lot of money for me and this is EMS:
I set out for the customs office 3 days after knowing it'll land there, waited for 3 agonizing hours, and paid a reasonable sum for the items, which I'm more happy to pay for if not for the soul-crushing ride and traffic going to the customs office.
Talk about a big box!
When the package arrived, you couldn't imagine the amount of paper they stuffed inside this thing:
Inside the box is a smaller box. Talk about Matryoshka style packing for the better:
So these two are the main culprits. I mean honestly, I'd rather pay these things right now than wait for the next shipment. It's just much of a hassle shipping them again and besides, free shipping is something you can't say no to!
Finally! My Japanese learning materials had come to a conclusion! Though the Koujien was not particularly what I expected of (there was a separate slim volume that should've come with it) I'm OK with the huge one as a spanking brand new copy of the book costs a whopping 8000 yen:
When a friend of mine went to the US for some RnR and soul-searching, I offered some of my services to her by piggybacking some Japanese orders which will never come off cheap with all the shipping and that. She managed to buy this bulky Detective Conan Art Book along with the Working Mangas with the free Nendroid and a volume she was pining for:
I also managed to find a suitable 2L-sized clear file for the e-lineup versions of Rikako's photos and I'm never all the happier. It fits well, though the number of sheets it holds is limited to 80 and they don't have color yellow:
And lastly, I had this package held up in the forwarder's address for nearly 5 months now and I said to myself "the heck, I'm still going to pay for it anyway," and finally decided to have it shipped here. As usual I went for customs but I never paid duties and at least I finally managed to give a friend of mine the 2nd Country Girls' single. The Elaiza Ikeda Mook is probably one of my favorite reads since the language isn't all that hard and I'm quite intrigued with her. I paid 1 yen for the mook and 357 Yen for the domestic shipping, and it looks fantabulous. The best 1 yen purchase I ever made:
In conclusion, I have spent a lot, again with this year's purchase edition. I will omit how much I spent since I lost count but I'm happy with what I've spent nonetheless.
