“I usually buy a lot of k-pop stuff in mercari through Buyee, and all the items have arrived safely and fast no matter what shipping option or plan you choose. They have a lot of variety and they do have coupons from Time to time.”
“I am a very loyal customer of Buyee with continuous shopping from Japan every month since November 2019 via Buyee. Among other companies providing the same kind of one-stop on-line buying and shipping services, Buyee is undoubtedly the most efficient and reliable one.”
“My first order from mercari was very unpleasant, I ordered a metal build Gundam, my seller cancelled my order because of price surge... Like the fact they can do that is unacceptable. To add to the wound, that made me missed my entry date to a great coupon for free international shipping.”
“Super fast proxy server when you’re trying to buy goods from japan in an accessible way! Resposive customer service!
Lots of shipping options, and you can pay with paypal which is always a plus”
“Finally able to purchase figures from yahoo jp and mercari. Buyee apps easy to use. Also, some of the amazon jp shop unable to ship oversea, I am able to use buyee as proxy to purchase. TQ.”
“I personally have a great experience with Buyee. I’m in the midst of moving, so a package I got is at my new address and the other one I still need to ship out. However my sister didn’t state the package that arrived looked off or anything, so that’s good!
Buyee’s customer service is also fast and very helpful in my opinion, any questions I asked they answered very clearly. I really appreciate it!!
The only thing that bothers me is how much the service fees cost, but at the same time Buyee offers really great coupons.
I’ll end on this: Look at what you want to buy. Do you REALLY want it? Then use Buyee. May not be the cheapest option, but it’s reliable! And you get really great coupons!!”
“Warning: this post will be a very long one, as I will discuss the benefits Buyee brings to the table, the disappointments I had with my shopping experience with them, and possible other alternatives to try.
I came across Buyee when I wanted to buy some Pokemon cards from Mercari. Having done so in the past with another (awful) proxy called Hoyoyo, I thought that maybe sticking with a larger proxy would be beneficial, and here are my personal opinions about the proxy.
Let's start out with the fees:
1. Plan fees: 300yen per transaction for the lite plan (transactions under one seller count as one transaction. For example, buying 10 cards from different sellers in Surugaya costs you 300yen in total), 800 for the insured plan.
2. Additional Mercari transaction fees of 200yen per transaction (if you order several of the same item at once, it counts as one transaction
3. Shipping consolidation: 1,000yen per consolidated package (if they break it off into separate packages, they charge you an extra 1,000yen :))))
Let's continue with the benefits:
1. Small package shipping options. For someone buying cards it's probably best to ship through small package, so this is a plus. However, there are lots of other companies out there doing free consolidation AND have small package options (like FromJapan) sooo not really a plus
2. Coupons! I have to say, if there's one thing that MAY (highly unlikely but POTENTIALLY) make me want to buy from Buyee again, it's the coupons. I first got reeled into using this proxy because they did have a promotion with Mercari, and if you made a purchase within the time frame, you had a 1,000yen coupon off your second Mercari purchase + 4,000yen coupon for international shipping. I bought a few pieces of clothing to use those coupons (including shoes). Shipped using Surface mail (so we'll see how that goes as it has yet to arrive). Because Buyee is so big, they have coupons with Mercari and Rakuten very often, which is a benefit of this proxy... before all the fees
OKAY I'm done with the benefits. Let's talk about ALLL the things that Buyee rubbed me off the wrong way through my one, big transaction with them.
As previously mentioned, I wanted to buy Pokemon cards on Mercari (before discovering Surugaya), and was reeled in by Buyee's coupons. My first purchase wasn't bad, Buyee has a fee calculator that gives you an estimate of the total for your purchase, and all was going on pretty well. Until it didn't and all hell broke loose. First, an order I put took roughly 3 days for them to complete (on a site called Magic, a "flea market" for cards and figurines, as Buyee puts it - basically another Mercari but without the transaction fee). Of course, since it was a good deal, both cards I wanted to get were sold out by the time they FINALLY put in the order, and I was refunded by Buyee. Then, I had an order that they were completing, but was interrupted by the seller asking them if I wanted two of the same items. The convo went like this:
Me: *places order*
Three days later:
Buyee: "The seller says they have more than one set and wants to know if you want several."
Me: "If it costs me additional plan fees, then no thank you. If not, then please order two."
Buyee: "It will not cost you any more additional fees other than the cost of another set. We will proceed your order. Please note you cannot cancel from this point forward" (makes sense, right? but if the seller isn't responsive ... shouldn't I be allowed to cancel than to have a "pending transaction" for god knows how long?)
*7 days later*
Me: "I understand your policy, but you haven't completed my order yet and my coupon is about to expire. Can you cancel it for me?"
Buyee: "The seller isn't responsive. We cannot cancel your order. It is our policy."
Me: *internally* DO I JUST HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS PENDING TRANSACTION FOR LIKE A FEW MONTHS THEN WTF
*2 days later*
Buyee: "The seller has replied. 3300yen for two sets. Is that okay?"
Me: "YES that's fine please just make the order asap."
*1 day later*
Buyee: "Sorry, we cancelled your order as the item is out of stock"
bro. BRO. I mean you could probably tell the seller was fishy (or Buyee... maybe the fishy one was you) from the second message onwards but you didn't let me cancel it. At this point I'm a bit irked by their service, but I didn't think much of it, until they messed up my Surugaya order. I made a large order from Surugaya across three sellers, all under one order. I get the notification that my order had arrived to the warehouse. I check the page and realize that I've been charged a 220yen shipping fee for no reason (as it was free shipping from the store). So I email their customer service. Have you ever been on a customer service phone call where they just pass you onto the next person, and because they came in the middle of the discussion they have no clue what's going on and what you need help with? Picture that, but with email, and with replies being 1 business day apart. I first emailed them regarding the fee, and was told by an agent that because they require tracking, I may be imposed with further fees even if the seller gives me free shipping (ironically enough this was the package that arrived a week later than all the other packages that I later on ordered from Surugaya so ... what tracking are you using? NULL tracking?). I wanted to ask about which seller specifically required domestic shipping as I can see under the order that several items (under the same package ID) didn't have domestic shipping (as this was under Surugaya), so I emailed them under the same thread again. I was greeted by a different agent who asked for the ID's of the packages without domestic shipping (which is what I'm asking THEM for). I greeted the new agent and gave them the information that I can see on the page with domestic shipping of 0yen and was replied to by ANOTHER agent asking for the package number, or else they cannot help me. I gave them the package number (that I did have, but was not asked for in the previous reply), and was replied to by THE FOURTH AGENT (by far the worst), telling me "oh I see you bought a lot of cards! the others are coming soon, don't worry!" (at this point i didn't know that he was referring to arriving to the warehouse and that my order was actually incomplete) but at this point I realized that there's no point in communicating with them since it seems like they're as confused as I am, so I stopped.
Later on, I made two other orders and they all shipped by now (all for free domestic shipping, so what the hell happened to the first package, Buyee?). Anyway, I do what a normal person would do: consolidate it (as shipping in this case costed less if I were to consolidate, even with the 1000yen fee). JUST to find out later on that the first order (that "arrived to the warehouse") was incomplete. They separated my ONE order into THREE different orders. After a long email to Buyee, the other two orders *magically* appear the next day under my page, but I was told that if I wanted to consolidate these extra two packages, sure! PAY ANOTHER 1000YEN. Since these two packages each would have costed me 560yen to ship (totalling to 1120yen in total), and even if I consolidate, I'd have to pay 1000yen + >560yen for shipping, WHY WOULD I CONSOLIDATE?? Firstly, that means that if I had never bought any of the other two orders and only this one order that they messed up, I would have went in under the impression that I wouldn't have to pay for consolidation, but now I'm forced to! Because they split it up into three different packages. But ignore that, because I'm willing to pay consolidation in the first place and wouldn't mind sneaking all three packages in my consolidated order. However, I couldn't now because THE TWO PACKAGES ARRIVED SO MUCH LATER AND I wasn't even aware that they weren't under the package that "arrived at the warehouse") (mind you, this was under the same order number and under the order number it said "arrived at the warehouse"). Also, HOW IS IT that this first order that I made, that got split up into three bloody packages, had two packages mysteriously "arrive late" but both arrive to the warehouse the DAY after I sent them an email? Unless it is such a coincidence (and if so, maybe I should buy the lottery), I call BS on Buyee. Pure BS.
As I mentioned before, A LOT of other proxies do this for free. Why do I have to pay 1,000yen to consolidate? If I were buying from one seller, maybe Buyee's small packet shipping option would entice me, but let's be honest, rarely does one sole seller carry all that you want.
For real numbers, let's say that I bought 5 cards from three separate sellers (not on Mercari, which charges you an additional 200yen PER TRANSACTION), for 200yen each (let's say they were recent promo cards). Then realistically, I could have done everything in FromJapan within 1900 yen, with 300 yen being the lite plan fee, fReE consolidation, and MAX 600 yen for shipping small packet, and 5*200 yen for the cards themselves (assuming free domestic shipping).
If I use Neokyo, it'd be 250 for the plan fee (with insurance bc Neokyo insures packages without the "insured plan" bs), 600 consolidation for items under 2kg, 600 yen for shipping small packet, and 5*200 yen for the cards themselves, totalling to 2550yen.
From Buyee (drumroll please): 300yen for the basic lite plan (if the cards get edge wear/bent, rip you!!), 1000 yen for consolidation service, 600 yen for small packet (if they don't do anything wrong - read next point), and 5*200yen for the cards themselves. TOTALLING TO 2900 YEN. If I use Mercari, it'd be an additional 200yen per card, meaning it's 3900 yen.
The possible good thing is that when I bought from Surugaya, they counted the store as one seller (even though they had several sellers within the store). But boi, I would NEVER buy from them through Buyee again - Neokyo seems to offer the same benefits, but at a lower rate and more insurance.
TL;DR: these are the things that I'm absolutely FUMING about with my transaction with Buyee:
1. Horrible customer service
2. Horrible customer service
3. Domestic shipping taking forever, and magically they "arrive" at the same day (which is the day after you email them about it)
4. Horrible customer service
5. did I mention -- HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
6. Insane fees (coupons won't help) - mainly consolidation fee of 1,000yen
7. All in all, a money-grab.
These are possibly two other alternatives I'll be looking into:
1. FromJapan (I bought one item from them and the process was smooth and very quick - will update on how the package is ... packaged later LOL)
2. Neokyo (looks very promising based on fees and policies - insurance is guaranteed! only downside is that you need to pay an extra shipping/consolidation (not rlly consolidation since you'd need to pay it for only one item) fee of 600 yen)”
“Their shipping service is impressive. My items were securely packaged and shipped to my country with amazing turnaround times. All correspondence was answered promptly.”
“First of all, it is hard to connect to the online customer service. I have to wait more than 30min online to get a response, or even not.
The additional fees are quite expensive, if I buy an item of 300yen in the auction, the basic additional charges are like 1000yen, with the domestic shipping of min 100yen and another international shipping cost. This is at least triple or quadruple from the original cost of the product. Some addtional charges are too expensive for tiny products especially the protective.
The basic additional charges should be affordable if it is decreased to not more than 300yen with the same service.
Buyee (auction) is worth and recommendable using it for commercial products but perhaps not for personal purpose.
------
The reason why I use Buyee is because I cannot access to Yahoo sites without living in Japan. Still I am unhappy that Buyee refused to provide me the contact of the seller despite I won the auction and I have the right to know.
Except all of that stated above, the rest are good therefore it is a 3 star experience for me.”
“First of all, it is hard to connect to the online customer service. I have to wait more than 30min online to get a response, or even not.
The additional fees are quite expensive, if I buy an item of 300yen in the auction, the basic additional charges are like 1000yen, with the domestic shipping of min 100yen and another international shipping cost. This is at least triple or quadruple from the original cost of the product. Some addtional charges are too expensive for tiny products especially the protective.
The basic additional charges should be affordable if it is decreased to not more than 300yen with the same service.
Buyee (auction) is worth and recommendable using it for commercial products but perhaps not for personal purpose.”
“I use Buyee for getting stuff from Yahoo auction in Japan.
They web interface is easy to use, simple and clear.
I particularly like their protection packaging service because they really pack your item safely inside the shipping box. Although the fees might not be everyone’s flavor, I think it worth it.”
