[JP yahoo auctions] NOT SPECIFIC DEAL switches, firewalls, etc potentially cheap, shipping from JP unknown

[tinfoil3d]

Not a "good deal", I just thought maybe some of you may be interested in a little bit outdated gear for peanuts. Idk what the shipping will look like, and it's all auctions yet i see some items like juni 4200-24t for many weeks untouched now at 1 JPY. Sometimes more interesting units with SFP28 pop up.
So here's the seller, explore his listings. Yahoo!オークション - pokogamedaiさんの出品リスト
I've bought quite a few items from him over last year.

 

[Koop]

You know I've used forward shipping services to get stuff from Japanese stores and yahoo auctions but I never considered homelab gear. Appreciate the heads up.

I haven't done it in years though. Any idea if it's the same deal for yahoo auctions to go through a middleman service or has anything changed?

Any idea which services like that are the most popular these days?

 

[iGene]

The shipping cost may not be justified given the prices of the items. However, it could be a good deal if you are located in Japan.
There are usually many good deals on HPE servers in Japan.

 

[reasonsandreasons]

For shipping, a decent option can be using a proxy like Zenmarket. Zenmarket will consolidate up to 30 days of orders into a single box for free, which usually yields savings over separate shipping (especially if you're willing to use surface transport). I bought a lot of video game hardware a few years ago that way at a substantial discount compared to what it'd go for in the US.

(A word of caution here: the nature of the service means that your shipping costs are an unknown until final packaging. That, combined with the 30 day waiting period, means that you can easily get into a spending spiral. My last box from them was the result of a late-night search for a Heat laserdisc that I ended up picking up in a bundle with like twenty other discs for 1 JPY . A phenomenal deal until shipping to the US and a few other "oh, since I'm already putting a box together" purchases brought things back to earth a bit.)

 

[WANg]

For shipping, a decent option can be using a proxy like Zenmarket. Zenmarket will consolidate up to 30 days of orders into a single box for free, which usually yields savings over separate shipping (especially if you're willing to use surface transport). I bought a lot of video game hardware a few years ago that way at a substantial discount compared to what it'd go for in the US.

(A word of caution here: the nature of the service means that your shipping costs are an unknown until final packaging. That, combined with the 30 day waiting period, means that you can easily get into a spending spiral. My last box from them was the result of a late-night search for a Heat laserdisc that I ended up picking up in a bundle with like twenty other discs for 1 JPY . A phenomenal deal until shipping to the US and a few other "oh, since I'm already putting a box together" purchases brought things back to earth a bit.)

Hmmmm...yep. I am somewhat impartial to Buyee (Rakuten's proxy shipping services) when it came to retro gadgets from Japan - once you factor in the transfer fee, customs numbers and the shipping costs...well, it can add up quick. A large chunk of the perceived savings might have to do with the fact that Japan is dealing with a rather weak currency as of Q1 2024, which makes items seem relatively cheap...although this is not expected to stay this way for long.

 

[tinfoil3d]

So yeah, fun fact: shipping from US TO japan is cheap, shipping FROM japan to the US is arm and leg. I have no idea what quotes you can get at various forwarding services but for most part dont expect that to be cheap. Im selling ST250v2, which is probably somewhere around 20kg. So that's around what, 40k+ JPY, or 280+ USD.
That's quite a lot.
From the US you can sometimes get pretty cheap shipping via ebay GSP, (although when it's ridiciously cheap they'll just refund you once they figure out this is too cheap), and some places can offer cheap shipping, whereas I don't know if we have something like this here.

 

[oneplane]

Fun fact, their tracking and profiling was too hard to turn down a bit so if you are in the EEA or the UK you can't access that site anymore.

 

[Cruzader]

From the US you can sometimes get pretty cheap shipping via ebay GSP, (although when it's ridiciously cheap they'll just refund you once they figure out this is too cheap),

A bit of my GSP orders with multiple items recently has been cancelled, but rather than saying its about the shipping being abnormally low its always that they cannot guarantee that all packages arrived if not orderd 1 by 1 type garbage.
As if its not already being processed as one large shipment already by the international transitions they get lost at.

 

[computably]

Hypothetically, what would be the best shipping method for somebody visiting Japan (ie staying in a hotel)? Asking for a friend...

 

[WANg]

Hypothetically, what would be the best shipping method for somebody visiting Japan (ie staying in a hotel)? Asking for a friend...

Probably Yamato Transport's Takubin service. Although...you will need to hit up their English hotline and ask for details.

 

[tinfoil3d]

yamato only takes intl mail via phone which is ridiculous in 2024 and the reason i've never used it.
however they do have somewhat attractive rates and speed vs japan post.
im simply using japan post where i can print labels and bring it to the PO.

if you mean WITHIN japan, anything works, no "best" method exists. 3 major ones: yamato, sagawa, japan post. all deliver within the same timespan.