It’s approaching a new record. It’s making JPY prices less painful. And it seems this is affecting some of the bidding, allowing for some lower prices.
@nimrodd, I feel your pain. I don’t understand this [Lite Plan] from Buyee, versus a [Standard Plan]. Do you save much on the difference? Who knows how many hands are involved in items shipped. With very small ones, theft is much easier. A few years back, I was communicating with someone who also buys from YAJ, but they’re a rare coin collector. And yeah… they had a couple of instances where one or two coins were missing from the package. I don’t recall the proxy they used. It might’ve been From Japan.
When you buy from Zen Market and ship by Zen Express, they automatically charge you for insurance. So if you go with the Standard Plan, does Buyee cover the total insurance for a shipment?
There’s also the matter of inspection for in-country, versus inspection of parcel to be shipped out of country…
Standard Plan is a combination of Insured Delivery and Inspection.
Here is the description for Insured Delivery:
When shipping packages, Buyee will in general ship the products purchased by the customer while maintaining the packaging provided by the seller / store.
In rare cases, depending on how the package is handled during transportation, the product may be damaged or lost during transit. If you apply for a Insured Delivery plan, in the unlikely event that the product is damaged or lost, the amount incurred based on the coverage set by Buyee will be refunded.
My package arrived (not lost) without damage (sealed in a perfectly intact envelope), so per their Insured Delivery descripton, there is no problem.
It’s one thing when you use a service and there are no issues to be faced. The real measure is when an issue arises and how well the service deals with it.
Of course the reference linked is anecdotal evidence, but if true, it says a lot about Buyee service reliability on issues. When you’re talking about a high value item, it’s really unnerving!
The other thing is… if there is going to be a thief among the crew involved in packing, they have to be very selective on what they take and how often. Otherwise, an investigation would be triggered and find whoever was on duty at the time of packing for those losses. But who knows how rigid is the recruitment process. If it’s lax enough, you could have someone working part time who joins, waits for opportune theft opportunities, then after grabbing a few, quits the job… then comes back some months later to repeat the process. Another question is, does the packer have any access to customer data? What if they look up an account and find the customer has a Lite Plan. This way, the employee can avoid any cost impact to Buyee and reduce risk.
Another issue is the carrier. Some people use shipping proxies. They buy something on eBay, but the shipping address is to a proxy shipper, who for a fee will take the parcel and then ship it off to the destination that might not be available to ship by eBay listed carriers or the ones available are too expensive. I once shipped off a $600 item to an eBay buyer with an address in Florida, but that ended up being a proxy shipper who in turn shipped the item to Saudi Arabia. In the end, they claimed they never got the package and then left me a negative on eBay. They never reached out. And I’d not checked on my eBay account for some time (took a break). When I came back, I saw the negative feedback. But by then it had been 3 months and eBay refused to remove the rating. I had to wait a whole year for it to roll off. Anyway, the buyer could’ve easily received the package but made the claim because there was no way for me to know about successful or failed delivery (in hope of eBay issuing a refund). Or… the proxy shipper could’ve made a routing mistake and simply refused to own up to it.
It may not have been Buyee, but instead the seller. Can you tell us who it was? Because some of us having been finding a few of them have begun to play dirty. Sending a broken or worn example when it was supposed to be new, or an entirely different pencil. They’ve figured out that proxy services have been used for purchases and the buyer has no way to leave feedback. Some sellers have been banned from ZenMarket because of complaints. Tetra_f is one example, among several others. In fact, it might be worth starting a topic on YAJ and Mercari sellers to avoid.
