Just want to share an experience with you that has me thinking whether this could indeed be happening and is the way many stores operate, particularly in Japan.
On the 17th of July, I bought some 151 singles from a high volume japanese ebay store, their prices appeared to be best in market for most cards, so for simplicity, i made the single order through them.
After purchasing the cards and waiting a week, I noticed they still weren’t posted.
I messaged for an update and they said your order will go out 31 July, a full two weeks after my purchase. I looked at their ebay listings and they do specify 10 business days as handling time.
It got me thinking, are they selling cards and then later sourcing them from local stores across Japan/their region, then once receiving the cards, posting them to the respective ebay buyer? Is this common practice?
While i’m on the topic, are there any good sites to purchase japanese singles (modern sets) from, in Japan thatdont require 3rd party shipping/accounts/apps.
common ebay experience when buying from jp sellers tbh
many of them are just proxy services that take your money and buy from mercari. you can literally find the same item (same pictures) on mercari most of the time.
i recommend getting over the mental hurdle of a proxy service, and signing up yourself.
As @inertgeometry stated, drop shippers are very common on ebay and will just buy the item from the original listing and then send it to you at a higher price point. Any delays with the original shipment also causes delays to your shipment.
I personally use YJP and Mercari JP for singles and for every other purchase. I have ordered from PCJ just once. Unless you are in JP and have a physical address there, you cannot ship international if you do not use middleman services. To be honest, middleman services now are very streamlined to make it a seamless user experience to buy stuff from Japan. So it should not be that difficult to set up an account and use the services.
There are several middle man options including Buyee, stores in Japan, and individuals that can be found on e4 and Instagram.
If you go with Buyee, they recently reduced their fees and added cheaper shipping options. I recommend buying a bunch of cards within a 30 day window and consolidating.
There are some really good middle men out there as well.
Buyee get a lot of shit but I’ve just had two really good experiences with them for some big orders. They also just added paypay flea market to their main services which has opened up even more potential items.
The main gripes people have are shipping costs. (Just look for coupons) they always give them out. They are also incredibly inflexible, but are very open about what they can or can’t do.
Honestly, unless you are spending a lot of money on cards from Japan (e.g. hundreds to thousands per month), or want rare cards that don’t come up on eBay, middleman services often end up being more expensive. There are a lot of fees that seem small but add up over time.
Let’s say I want to buy 5 cards which sell for an average price of $20 in Japan, but on eBay are listed for $30 each with free shipping. eBay would cost you $150 and you’re done. When you buy from a middleman service, you’ll pay the $100 for the cards, but probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $12-15 in middleman fees (300 yen x 5), $10-15 in domestic Japanese shipping fees (200-300 yen x 5), and $20-50 in international shipping fees depending on shipping speed, consolidation fees, and protective packaging options. Your middleman order of cards ranges from effectively the same price as eBay to noticeably more expensive.
Keep in mind that you’re also sacrificing eBay’s excellent buyer protection policies in exchange for the nonexistent protection of yahoo/mercari.
I usually avoid buying modern cards from Japan unless I’ve already got a package going or can make a large order from a card shop to minimize the fees.
Here is an example of Buyee in action
Eevee 033/SV-P
Lowest list on eBay: $93 in played condition, all others are $100+. You also pay sales tax on eBay, but not on Buyee.
On Mercari, it was $51 plus $3 Buyee fee plus $14 shipping fee = $68 all in. Plus you can get other cards with it and pay no/little extra in shipping.
Worried about buyer protection? Well I saved $30 on this one card, do that a couple of times and you can now “afford” getting scammed once and still be ahead.
I agree with Ethan. YJ and Mercari through a middleman are great, iff you can’t find the items on eBay or elsewhere. Modern Japanese cards or easy to find vintage cards I just buy on eBay (and I also let them ship to my US middleman to save on import fees).
Then again, I usually don’t care too much about the costs of things I buy, so it’s certainly possible some cards are available for a lot cheaper on Mercari/YJ (or other Japanese webshops for that matter).
But for the items that aren’t available on eBay, which is the case for a lot of items once you start going after rarer older Japanese cards or non-TCG merchandise, YJ and Mercari are great, and I personally also use Buyee. Lately I’ve been buying a lot of non-TCG Seviper stuff, and have been using Buyee for almost everything from Japan.
The only disadvantage of Buyee I personally have, is that their free storage period is only 30 days. With my US middleman I usually let him ship 3-4 times a year to me, but with Buyee I’m ‘forced’ to do so every month, even if I only have one or two items in my Buyee storage. (I’m not exactly forced, but otherwise roughly 1 USD is added to the storage costs, per items overdue, per day… Not something I prefer to do, unless it’s only one or two days at most.)
But going back to the topic of dropshippers, it’s indeed pretty common on eBay with Japanese sellers. If you look at someone’s available eBay items and they all have a different background, it’s almost guaranteed a dropshipper, and not worth your time. Most of the items they have in their shop have already been sold anyway… I think there is still an autographed Pikachu somewhere on eBay, which I bought over two months ago on Mercari…
I have been buying an absolute crapload of 151 cards from Mercari in the past few weeks. There’s always good deals to be found (especially lots) and for most of the cards I bought I paid about half the price or less compared to prices on the European market (this includes fees, and shipping costs are very low if you buy a lot). So I would say there’s definitely some value buying modern singles from Mercari/Y!J etc if you’re planning on completing modern sets like 151.
I have seen Japanese sellers do this for rarer/more vintage cards (I see it a lot with old EX and eSeries stuff), but I highly doubt they are doing it for ultra-modern sets like 151 when the cards are readily available. Most Japanese sellers take a while to ship. I can count on one hand how many Japanese sellers I’ve bought from have shipped the next day (or even within two days). Most of them take 5-10 days.
Of course, anything is possible, but I don’t think anyone is dropshipping 151 cards, especially the cheaper cards like the ARs.
Unfortunately, this is common. Dishonest, in MY HUMBLE opinion. As for trusted sellers, or ones that don’t do this, I generally try to buy from sellers that I’ve previously dealt with over the last 20 years of buying from Japan. One trick that I’ve found is to buy from a store that has a sizeable amount of listings that span different eras of the game, but are NOT all sealed, or high-volume. Basically, look for sellers that have stock similar to an Local Gaming Store or pawn shop, and of course, with significant feedback.
There are a few great JP sellers listed in the eBay Gold Thread.
As buyer, I would prefer to buy from sellers with ready goods + what I see in the photos is what I’m getting. Usually would avoid listings with stock photos.
Drop shippers you can use to your advantage. If I see something clearly being marketed as such on eBay, I’ll go to Japan and acquire it there. Good marketing strategy, just not for them.
Guess for rest of us, who can’t read Japanese, have no choice but to pay the middleman to get stuffs, which I don’t mind.
If the middleman is a Japanese in Japan, knows the ways and rounds of the local culture and environment, I really don’t mind paying the extra to him to get less/no bumps and smoother endeavor.
