01
Know which of the two services you need
They are not variations on one idea. They solve different halves of the problem, and picking the wrong one is how people end up unable to complete a purchase.
A proxy buyer bids and buys on your behalf. They hold the Japanese account, they place the bid, they pay the seller, the item lands at their warehouse, and they ship it on to you. For an auction this is the only thing that works, because someone with a Japanese account has to be the one bidding.
A forwarder gives you a Japanese address and nothing more. You buy the item yourself and have it delivered there, then they forward the parcel. That is enough for a shop that accepts foreign cards, and it is not enough for a Yahoo auction, because you still could not have placed the bid.
For nearly everything on this site, that means a proxy buyer.
02
Open the account before you find something
This is the step people skip and regret. Registration takes a day or so to clear, and many of these auctions end within 48 hours. An account opened after you spot something is usually an account opened too late.
Compare the services below and open an account with whichever suits the purchase.
03
What it costs, beyond the hammer price
The service fee is the small part. The parts that actually decide whether a find is worth taking are the ones below it.
| Service | Service fee |
|---|---|
| ZenMarket | ¥300 to ¥500 per item |
| Buyee | ¥500 flat per order, any number of items |
| FromJapan | ¥300 per item, capped at ¥800 per shop |
Then the real costs. Domestic shipping from the seller to the proxy warehouse. International shipping, which for a single knife is usually the largest line after the item itself. Payment and currency spread. And your own country’s import duty and VAT, charged on arrival and easily the most commonly forgotten number of the lot.
A rule of thumb worth carrying: on an inexpensive knife the landed cost can approach the hammer price. The estimates on this site are for the item, not for the item delivered to your door.
04
Before you bid, on a knife specifically
Some countries restrict blade imports, and a few restrict them by blade length or by lock type rather than by category. Check your own rules before bidding, not after winning. A refused parcel is usually destroyed rather than returned.
Read the seller’s condition notes rather than the photographs alone. Rust, chips, a re-handled knife, a blade thinned by decades of sharpening, and a cracked natural stone are all common and all normal in this market. They are also priced in by people who can read the listing, which is part of why something looks cheap.
Bladehound reads the signature off the photographs. It does not inspect the item, and it cannot tell you whether a blade is sound.