Are are you looking to purchase products in Japan?

Are you looking for Japanese anime, manga toys or figures? How about Touhou Project merchandise or J-Pop CDs? Japanese sweets, snacks and instant ramen? Shimano fishing rods, designer hand bags, Japanese fashion brands? Japanese skin care and beauty products like Shisedo?

Known for high quality and uniqueness, Japan is a treasure trove for some of the most niche products which in most are cases impossible to find elsewhere in the world. (Where else are you going to find rare Dragon Ball Z figures?)

If you are an individual buyer, retailer, wholesaler or collector who is looking to purchase products from Japan then you have probably realized that it is not the most easiest process and that there are some things you should understand before deciding to buy.

Why is it hard to buy products from Japan?

Language barrier

Purchasing specific products you want from Japan such as unique Japanese boutique clothing or Japanese anime figures can be done on big Japanese eCommerce or auction websites like Yahoo Auctions, Rakuten and Amazon JP.

However, not speaking Japanese and relying on google translate to understand product specifications, filter settings, seller details, comments and ratings is daunting. The information you need will not translate correctly leaving you without the details you need when make a purchasing decision.

For example, let’s say you are an American looking to purchase some unique Bleach anime figures or a Shimano fishing rod and want to give Yahoo Auctions which is essentially the eBay of Japan a try to find some good deals.

Someone who doesn’t really know what they’re looking for but would like to browse some stock is going to have a load of trouble here because the filtering settings are all in Japanese.

Trying to search by item specifications such as item name or item scale will yield better results, right? Not exactly.

As you can see above the search results are pretty weak and the reason is that most Japanese sellers, not only limited to Bleach figurines, are using Kanji, Katakana or Hiragana (the 3 character sets of Japanese language).

Local Japanese retailers/stores/manufacturers don’t ship internationally and have limited stock

If you are trying or have attempted to purchase products from Japan then you most likely noticed that most stores and sellers on Rakuten, Amazon JP and Yahoo Auctions do not offer international shipping options. It’s really as simple as that. Many Japanese people on the local level don’t speak English so dealing with countries abroad is not of interest. If you notice a store that does offer international shipping options then it is likely it will be out of your budget. Also, if you want to purchase more than one product at a time, for example a few anime figures or a few designer hand bags from multiple sellers, you will certainly get killed on shipping.

If you want to buy products from Japan, you need to use a proxy service.

Using a reputable proxy service website to purchase Japanese products is really the only way option to purchase products from Japan. If you have never used a proxy service, a proxy service is a website that acts as a middle man for getting products in a foreign country.

Surprisingly, there are actually not that many proxy services specializing in niche Japanese products.

The best one out there by far is ZenMarket Japan who’s been smoking out their competition in global website ranking for one reason only, they make it super freaking easy to purchase Japanese products online.

ZenMarket Japan surpasses competition. Screen grab taken from similarweb.

This proxy service is pretty great and I was very surprised with how well they manage to translate Japanese product listings into local languages making it simple to make a purchasing decision. ZenMarket Japan also handles everything down to shipping the items and only charges a fixed 300円 (roughly $3.00USD) that doesn’t change compared to the dirty service fees other sites charge that increase depending on your item’s value which can seriously add up to a ton.

But the real value ZenMarket Japan brings to the table is that other than being integrated with big sites such as Amazon and Rakuten, you can also bid in real time on the biggest Japanese auction website, Yahoo!Auctions, which really allows you to take a deep dive into the local Japanese market.

I love Japan and believe that Japanese quality and goods should be shared with everyone around the world who has a special interest for anything Japanese so don’t be intimidated when shopping for Japanese products, just use a proxy service and enjoy shopping in your own native language!