I’ve always heard people talking about yahoo Japan and Mercari japan. I’ve recently started ordering on there with much success. My question is this other website Rakuten. It seems nearly the exact same as yahoo Japan. I’m nervous about buying sealed booster boxes from there due to the cost. It doesn’t seem right compared to every where else for the same product. Hoping to hear of some success stories buying booster boxes from Rakuten. Any advice or tips or stories would be very appreciated.
2 Likes
Advice: if you’re nervous about buying something, don’t buy it. Rakuten, buyee, mercari, and others have been around for years and are trustworthy services on their own, but YAJ is not the same as Ebay. There’s virtually no buyer protection or customer service
5 Likes
Yes this is what I’ve gathered from listening and reading.
My only hesitation is the cost difference from recent comps to the cost of the item. Only one on eBay is 700 USD. Rakuten has the same item got 180 USD.
One of those too good to be true situations
Thanks for your perspective
There’s two things happening here (probably). Prices have been high on ebay for a while because of the whole explosive growth of pokemon yadda yadda. I dunno what product you’re talking about, but $700 could be an overinflated price because the rest of the “normally” priced product got bought out. At the same time, things are usually cheaper on Yahoo becausethere is no buyer protection. You’re basically taking a risk for a better deal.
The rule of thumb on YAJ is that you don’t want to spend anything that you can’t afford to lose, because it’s not guaranteed.
2 Likes
It’s a gamble. Your protections are virtually nonexistant but if you get what is said in the listing, and at the price listed, you might come out on top. My feeling is that the amount of times you get what you want ends up trumping the times you get burned, so over-all, you still win in the long run.
2 Likes
@chrisbalestra, Idk, to me it feels more like a round of Among us. Lots of sus sellers, the one you decide to trust ends up being the imposter and the entire platform is in need of a repair.
1 Like
If there was buyer protection and it was completely open to international people than everyone would buy from it
3 Likes
I gotta admit I got burned this week out of $300. But all in all I still think I’m on top. You’re taking the risk in exchange for lower price points. You can’t have it all.
3 Likes
@kingboo64, If…
@chrisbalestra, The point is, I can get nearly any item in that price range on ebay (sooner or later) without having to risk losing my money. The only cards that make Yahoo Japan relevant for me are high-end items that rarely enter the market. But those are so expensive that it’s not about getting burned out of $300, it’s about getting burned out of $30,000
I guess it depends on what you buy. I save thousands easily. But I don’t really go after set cards.
It’s fine if you dont care about condition. The pictures are absolutely terrible and hide everything unless the seller makes a point of it… Especially the backs of cards.
Sometimes the listings are very shady. For example, after smpratte’s video yesterday I went to check the listings for the Official Pokemon Book 2000 and lo and behold a sealed copy. Except, I checked Amazon JP and surprise surprise, the exact same pictures of the book being used as the YA listing. Scam, or was the seller just too lazy to take a couple pics of their book? That’s the risk you take.
I use YA pretty much every week it’s the most convenient service for me in Japan. However, my experience is gambling on the condition of cards never really works out, you either get whatever you can see from the terrible pics or you get worse.
Edit- Talking about buying Yahoo here obviously. I use Rakuten occasionally too. It’s a similar story to be honest.
Yes my fear is it’s a stock image of the booster box and I want to keep it seal. Would hate to go years down the line to find out. Gonna just Wait for another auction. Thanks for the tips
Spot on. Out of all my purchases, I’ve had one that I felt was marginally better than I thought it would be. The rest were essentially a little worse than expected. But I build that into what I’m willing to pay. It helps that I’m going after no rarity only mostly. Because I’m still ok if something is psa 6-7 even if it looked like an 8.
Not a scam necessarily just a wonky business practice. They’re dropshippers. The more you look at YAJ the more you realize how extremely common it is. Basically someone lists actual product on YAJ, 2nd unauthorized party takes the listing and uploads it to ebay where the audience is wider, if you buy on ebay then they buy it for you and ship it to you once they get it basically working as a shady sketchy middleman while looking like a normal seller. If you happen to buy the ebay listing but the YAJ listing is already sold then they’ll just cancel your order and refund you
How long does Buyee give the Mercari seller to ship before cancelling the order?
I ordered a card on Buyee from Mercari, ordered Dec 7th, it is still not marked as shipped from the seller.
Note: I am not impatient, just curious when I should just reorder the card so I can ship all cards home in one shipment
2 Likes
From personal experience it’s around 48 business hours (keep in mind time zone differences) before you’ll know if the Mercari seller canceled the order if done through Buyee.
Most Buyee orders will be confirmed within 12 business hours of placing the order on Mercari so anything longer there’s a good chance the seller has cancelled.
It can jump from not shipped to arrived at warehouse, so fingers crossed. I’ve waited ~20ish days before at most.
2 Likes
This is where I am at. It just isn’t marked as shipped. I had another order where the seller took almost 5 days to mark as shipped, and eventually arrived
Thanks for that, I’ve also seen stuff suddenly marked as arrived at warehouse without seeing it marked as shipped.
I wasn’t sure if Buyee had a policy of so many days before you can ask for a refund/cancel
