Hello Cuties~
I'm writing this post mainly because I had to go through this process on my own to find out about the specific fees and such. I tried to research as much as I could beforehand, but some parts of the Buyee process was not clear to me. That is until I completed my order and payments. Plus I was positive I wanted these items and didn't want to miss out on them, so I just went for it. So I hope by posting this, it'll answer any questions or clear up any confusion anyone has with using Buyee.
When bidding on items, what you initially see is the set price by the seller. What you don't think about at that moment are fees. With bidding, Buyee wants to assure that no one receives something different than what they were supposed to receive; meaning, damaged goods or just outright something different from what they were promised. So among the fees are: Buyee service fee, Payment fee (with auctions), and Plan fees.
So what is a auction's Payment fee? According to their FAQ, the payment fee is "the cost of transferring your outgoing payments to the seller/store." Which I'm still not 100% sure what's the purpose of because the seller set their item price. Especially if there is already a fee for using Buyee's services. Why a payment fee? I don't know if I'm just missing its point or not but please feel free to explain it to me if you understand it! lol
There are different Service fees depending on which service you use. I used auction via Yahoo! Japan auction, so the service fee was 5% or 150 yen.
Plan fees are where that reassurance I mentioned comes into play. There are four plans: standard, insured delivery, inspection, and lite. I believe I selected the Lite plan for all four items of my transaction. I wasn't expecting for there to be "plans" per item. I figured you could set up a similar plan for the entire package if you decide to consolidate your items.
The bidding process is basically like eBay if you've done it before. You enter an amount, confirm it, and select a plan. Initially when you set up your Buyee account, you choose a form of payment. I chose Paypal, therefore all of my transactions went through my paypal account. So if you win the auction, the payment will automatically go through. If you're outbidded, you will receive an email and have a choice to rebid. You will also receive emails for when you win, and confirmation of payments.
Here's the breakdown of my items:
And here's the breakdown of my fees after consolidating:
By the way, if you want to combine all of your items (if you're purchasing multiple), you can request to consolidate them. You'll get a confirmation email, and another once the final parcel has been packed. They ask that you wait until all of your items have arrived to the warehouse before requesting package consolidation. As you can see, that shipping total HURT. Like really hurt lol.
Per usual, there are different shipping methods. I went with EMS which takes 2 - 4 days according to their site. I wish I hadn't deleted all of my emails, because I can't tell you exactly what day it shipped out. Maybe it was the 24th? My package was delivered to my door on the 29th. The shipping went smoothly; like extremely smooth! I was nervous with this being my first Buyee order, but everything went well. I spent more than I anticipated, mostly because of the shipping.
I'll have to compare this transaction with my Dejapan order from last year to see how I fared out. With that being said, I don't know which I'd prefer at the moment. If I remember correctly, the shipping wasn't in the same ballpark. But I'll have to check back before I say!
I hope this post was helpful! Don't hesitate to ask questions if I failed to acknowledge something.
~ Love you! x Amiman ~
