Buying pens from Japan
Many people find that buying pens, inks and paper from Japan is a good way to both save money and access a wide array of products. While there is obviously a language barrier when trying to buy from abroad, it’s actually very easy to navigate the process if you have a bit of help … so read on!
Amazon Japan
Amazon Japan is a very easy way to dip your toe into buying from Japan – the prices are usually better than you could find in the UK and they will sell just about any products – pens, inks & notebooks.
Buying is pretty easy – you just need to create an account on the Amazon Japan site as you would your local Amazon site. Then search for and buy what you are interested in. Amazon will always(?) pay the VAT/tax up-front and quote you the shipping – usually by DHL. The parcels usually arrive in around 5 days.
PlazaJapan
PlazaJapan is a small online market place that sells an odd selection of collectable items from puzzles, figurines and some Pilot & Sailor pens & inks. The prices are always very good but do be aware that they will not include VAT on a basket worth over £135.
Yahoo! Auctions Japan
Yahoo! Auctions give you access to the best deals – especially for vintage items.
- Register with an purchasing agent like ZenMarket – you can use others like FromJapan/OneMap but I use ZM so I’ll write about that one. The only disadvantage of ZenMarket is that they will NOT purchase inks (even when they are included with a pen) because they require extra paperwork to export from Japan. If you want inks then PlazaJapan or Amazon are the best options.
- Send some money to your account using Bank Transfer – the commission/rate is best – just
- Go to the Add Funds page
- Scroll to the bottom
- Click “Local Bank Transfers” and send to ZenMarket’s account in your country
- Search JDirectAuctions (the new name for Yahoo! Auctions Japan) for what you want:
- It helps if you use Japanese text to search – here are some useful terms:
- Fountain pen: 万年筆
- Pilot: パイロット
- Sailor: セーラー
- Add interesting things to your Wishlist etc. – you’ll often have to ask them to unblock items that include the world “ink” in the description, even if it says “no ink”. They will unblock if they think they can buy it.
- If you want to find the Japanese word for something
- Search any of the options for something using English
- Bring up an item and look for the “Original Japanese name” field
- Copy/paste this into Google Translate and remove obviously incorrect pieces of text until you find a piece that translates to the word you are after
- It helps if you use Japanese text to search – here are some useful terms:
- Bidding:
- You can bid now (a normal bid) or get ZM to place an automatic (sniper) bid for you – remember that bids are binding – if you bid too much or on the wrong thing then it on you – you have to buy it.
- Sniper bids are locked in 20 minutes before the auction finishes (you can’t make or amend them after that)
- Sniper bids are placed 5-10 minutes before the auction finishes
- Your bids are automatically bid-up to the maximum you have entered
- You will see the progress on the item page and you will get automated messages to say what is happening
- Sellers usually turn on the “Auto extension” option, which is an anti-snipe system. If you bid within 5 minutes of the auction closing the system adds 5 minutes to the remaining time. This leads to bidding wars.
- Watch out for 10% VAT on some of the auctions
- After you win something
- You have committed to buying this item – no backing out now!
- ZenMarket will pay on your behalf and arrange for delivery to their Osaka warehouse
- When it is delivered to ZM you are charged 500 yen ZM service fee
- Your items will all be unpacked & stored in Osaka for up to 60 days without additional charges. If you exceed 60 days then they do apply a fee per item over 60 days but they are also quite flexible and if your items are being packed then you don’t get charged it it takes them a few days to get it done.
- Sending stuff to you
- When you want to have your items sent to you then click “Create New Parcel” and tell them which items to send and what is your chosen shipping method.
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- They will pack your parcel and get a quote for the shipping – you’ll be informed when the charges are ready to pay
- If your items come to less than the £135 VAT up-front payment limit then ZM will ask if you want to pay the VAT in advance – I usually do, to speed things up. If you don’t then you’ll have to pay VAT, duty and handling fees to the courier when the parcel arrives.
- At this point you can choose a different shipping method if the quoted amount is too expensive
- When you’re happy, pay the shipping and the parcel will go out at the next available time the shipper visits
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- If you didn’t pay VAT in advance then you’ll probably have to pay VAT, duty & a handling fee to the courier when it gets into your country.
Rakuten, Mercari, Yahoo! Shopping
These are other marketplaces that you can access through ZenMarket
- Amazon: Yes, you can also get your Amazon purchases bought through ZenMarket and shipped with your other items … but not inks, remember.
- Rakuten: equivalent to Amazon Market place – new items sold by small to medium sized companies
- JDirectShoppings (Yahoo! Shopping): very similar to Rakuten
- Mercari: I think this is supposed to be an up-market eBay or perhaps Vinted
Buying from “shops” (as opposed to bidding on individual items) usually involves you:
- Adding the item to your basket
- Waiting for ZenMarket to get a quote for the number of items plus shipping
- You choosing to buy or not
- If you buy then the items join your stored items like the auction items
Auction bidding tactics
- Watch a lot of items and get a feel for what different things sell for in Japan so that you don’t pay over the odds and you understand what a “good” price is.
- Check all the photos carefully – REALLY carefully – sellers can make the bad bits out of focus or they might hide a fault “in plain sight” by putting the faulty part on the edge of the photo or in a shadow. If you aren’t happy that the key parts are fine then don’t buy it.
- Let a lot of items go – don’t bid on everything and don’t get sucked into paying more than you should. Remember, unless you are buying a one-off, unique item then you’ll see the same or better another day. You are playing the long game!
- Remember you’re going to pay another 30-40% approximately for shipping in Japan (anything from free to 2000Y), ZenMarket fees (500Y), international shipping (depends on the courier), import VAT (20%), duty (rarely) and handling (about £10-£15).
- Use sniper bids to bid low on your behalf – you never know how often you can win, while away from your computer because nobody else bothered to bid.
- Most auctions will close in early evening Japan time – across the middle of the day/early afternoon UK time.
- Sunday is the busiest day of the week but you’ll find stuff all week for sale. However, there’s a reason most auctions close on Sunday – they achieve higher prices because more people have time to watch them.
- How auto-extension affects bidding:
- You should try to get a good bid in before the 5-minute cut-off
- If the countdown is <5 minutes and you’re the under-bidder then the best tactic is to bid late (around 8-10 seconds to go) and hope to reset the clock to just above 5 minutes. This prevents someone bidding just before 5 minutes again and they will then wait.
- The hope is that the other bidder will just make a mistake or get distracted and either not notice you are winning or just get tired of fighting you.