A Guide To Yahoo Auctions JPN
Yahoo Auctions is the holy grail of anime related merchandise (and pretty much anything Japanese) - from cels and figures to rare DVDs and posters! If it was released in Japan, chances are, it's on this site. So what's the problem, why can't we just hop on in there and use it like we would use eBay? Well, the site is entirely in Japanese, an account requires a Japanese address and credit card, as well as payments being required through a Japanese bank transfer. It's one big headache to try and do manually and the moment you even try to mention international shipping (assuming the seller even speaks English), chances are, they're not going to fulfill your order.
So how do we get around this, besides hunting down a long lost Japanese relative and forcing them to do your bidding (quite literally)?! Well, that's where Japanese Auction Center (JAUCE) comes in - they are essentially your online middleman!
So let's break that down into easy steps starting from post-account creation (that part's easy enough): -
- 1. Finding your item!: Sounds easy, right? Well, unfortunately, this is actually trickier than it sounds due to near enough every title being in kana. You can't just type 'VEGETA FIGURE' and expect to get the same results as typing ' ベジータ のフィギュア' or just ' ベジータ'. ('Vegeta Figure' or 'Vegeta').
It's very easy to find out how each character's name is written through a simple Google search. Near enough every wiki-entry has the Japanese characters right next to the English ones so it's fairly simple. As long as you have a rough search term that describes what you want then you should be okay. The way I tend to go about things is to start off with a single search term and if I find an item similar to what I want, I'll look at how it was described and just copy and paste the relevant parts.
2. Adding Funds: Alright, now you've seen the bid price/buy it now price, it's time to add funds to your JAUCE account! Simply head back to the site, make sure you're logged in and hit that big green 'DEPOSIT' button. The site takes %3.9 + JPY40 per withdrawal so it's best to decide on how much you're willing to spend and then add a bit on to cover shipping/win fees. This varies on the price/size of the item - 800 yen + 8% of the item purchase. Not super cheap but not unreasonable with all things considered.
Once you've entered in your amount, you'll be taken to the PayPal page and you just sign in and pay as you would with any other site.
3. Placing your bids!: Once that's done, head back to your item on Yahoo Auctions, look up in the URL bar and you'll see there's a code right at the end of the URL - e.g. u42324257
Copy that code, head back to Japanese Auction Site and enter it in their search bar. After a short time, it'll bring up the auction page with the important parts translated and you can place your bid!
That's all there is to it really! If you're ever outbid, the site automatically sends you an email letting you know so there's no need to worry about that.
Here's a few things to consider before placing bids: -
- If you're using Google to translate the descriptions of your items, be sure to look very carefully and research anything that seems a bit iffy in the translation. You don't want to receive a heavily worn or broken item because you didn't take the time to make sure you fully understood what's being described. There's many Japanese speakers on this site who I'm sure wouldn't mind helping you out so please don't rush anything!
Secondly, make sure to take a look at the location of the item in Japan in relation to JAUCE's warehouse. You don't want to be stuck with excessive delivery fees on top of the international ones. Many sellers tend to put a rough estimation of how much it costs to each region so as long as you know that JAUCE are based in Tokyo, you should be fine.
I'm not affiliated with the site in any way so I can't guarantee absolutely everything is 100% accurate but yes, happy to help!
And here are my Dragon Boxes:
Spoiler:
