How to Buy Music Stuff from Japan: A Guide

#PART I. ONLINE STORES

As always, a great starting point when looking for stuff is to go to Google and search for what you're after. For example, if you're looking for Japanese vinyl, you should search "[artist name] [release title] ["LP" or "レコード" or "アナログ" or "7"" or whatever]" (e.g. "Nujabes Metaphorical Music アナログ" or "Nujabes Kumomi 7""). Searching on Google will lead you to both popular sites, and smaller stores like local record stores. Note that you may need to use the artists' Japanese-language name to get better search results (e.g. instead of searching "Sheena Ringo", try using "椎名林檎" instead).

Sites and shipping methods marked below in bold are highly recommended by me!

###Stores that ship internationally Amazon Japan, HMV Japan, CDJapan, and Rakuten Global Market all have international shipping options.

• Amazon Japan is by far the best of these sites. For countries outside of Asia, they only have one shipping method option, but it's express with tracking, and REALLY cheap for how fast it is (e.g. their shipping fee for one CD/DVD/record going to the US is about $9 USD). Amazon Japan also regularly has discounts on their items and the opportunity to earn "points" that can be used as store credit. Like every other Amazon site, Amazon Japan also allows third-party sellers who offer new and used items. Keep in mind that some of these third party sellers ship internationally, and some of them don't. Please also note that the Amazon Japan site is in Japanese by default but there is an English language setting; look for a little globe icon near the top of the screen and click it to change the language setting.

• HMV Japan is the next best site. Certain items have "member discounts" (which you're entitled to just for having an account) and "multi-buy discounts" (which you get if you buy a few "multi-buy" items together). HMV also only has one international shipping option - EMS (Express Mail Service), which is relatively expensive.

• The main difference between CDJapan and the other sites is that CDJapan offers a variety of different shipping methods, including cheap ones like SAL and Small Packet. However, they're only a little bit cheaper than Amazon's express international method, and slower / more unreliable, so Amazon Japan is gonna be more worthwhile in general. For more info on shipping methods, see the "Shipping Methods" section below.

• Rakuten Global Market is a "marketplace"-type site--similar to eBay--with a wide range of items from lots of independent, third-party sellers. They ship internationally using EMS or Airmail Small Packet.

Whereas the aforementioned sites sell a wide range of items (not just music stuff), there's also a few great general record stores that specialise in vinyl and CDs. These stores often stock cool underground or special releases that the bigger shops don't have. Jetset Records, Flake Records, and Stereo Records are the three most noteworthy ones that can ship internationally. Jetset offers EMS, SAL and Airmail as international shipping options, whereas Flake and Stereo only ship with EMS.

It is worth noting that you can also order from any of the above sites using a proxy (see the "Proxies" section below). There are two main reasons that you might want to do this.

• 1. If you have already purchased other items using a proxy, it might be cheaper to buy from the above sites using the same proxy, so that you can ship all your items together in one parcel. For example, if you use a proxy to buy some things from Tower Records, but also buy some things directly from Amazon Japan without a proxy, you'll have two separate parcels coming to you, and you'll have to pay international shipping for both of them. Instead, you could use a proxy to buy from both Amazon Japan and Tower Records; that way, the proxy can put all your items together in one parcel, and you only have to pay for international shipping on that one parcel. However, doing this may not actually be cheaper in some circumstances. You should calculate and compare the cost of shipping things separately and shipping everything together from the proxy before making your decision.
• 2. When you get a store to ship internationally directly to you, you cannot change the "declared value" of the items in your parcel. This may mean that you will incur customs fees, depending on what country you live in. If you live in a country where you get charged customs fees on low-value imported parcels, you can avoid these customs fees by using a proxy. Please read the "Proxies" and "About declared values" sections below for more details.

###Great stores that don't ship internationally Amazon Japan, HMV and CDJapan all have good selections of items, but you'll find that there's many items you want that aren't available on those sites. Here are a few other common stores that you can try. Since none of these stores ship internationally, you're going to have to use proxies to buy from them (see the "Proxies" section below).

• Two essential music-focused online stores are Tower Records and Diskunion. They sell an amazing range of releases, including popular ones, underground ones, and everything in between.

• Rakuten is a "marketplace"-type site just like Rakuten Global Market, except that the sellers on Rakuten don't ship internationally. Rakuten also has a non-marketplace site called Rakuten Books where they sell CDs, DVDs and books themselves (not through third-party sellers).

Note that artists will often include "store-exclusive bonus items" with new releases, which can only be obtained by buying the release from a particular store(s), usually Tower and Diskunion. Also note that Diskunion and other stores may waive the domestic shipping fee if your order is above a certain amount (e.g. Diskunion offers free shipping on orders totaling more than 5,000 yen; Amazon Japan offers free domestic shipping on orders totalling more than 2,000 yen).

###Secondhand sites!!! Japanese secondhand sites are extremely important!!! You can often find a lot of new and used, rare and sold-out items on these sites. The two main ones are Yahoo Auctions and Mercari. Sellers on these sites also do not ship internationally, so you'll need proxies. Again, see the "Proxies" section below for details.

Note that you may need to use the artists' Japanese-language name (usually kanji or katakana) to get better search results on Yahoo Auctions and Mercari, even if the artist's name is officially written in English. For example, instead of searching "The Pillows" on these sites, try using "ピロウズ" instead.

###The familiar sites You might be able to buy Japanese stuff from Discogs, Amazon.com, or eBay for the same cost or cheaper than Japanese sites, or you might find rare stuff on these sites that you can't find anywhere else. Discogs especially has lots of vintage releases and rare, out-of-print collectors items. However, be very wary of price gougers, particularly with regard to new releases. There are a lot of sellers on all those sites who know that Western buyers are often unaware of other ways of buying stuff from Japan, and they take advantage of that by charging exorbitant prices for stuff that you can easily get for cheaper if you know how. So, you should compare prices on Discogs, Amazon.com and eBay with other sites before going ahead.

#PART II. PROXIES

Proxy buying services can help you buy stuff from pretty much any Japanese store, especially the ones that don't ship overseas, or don't accept non-Japanese payment methods.

After you sign up for an account with a proxy, you place an order by locating the order form on the proxy's website, and filling it out with the URL of the item you want to buy. The proxy will then check your order form and send you back a quote. After you pay the quoted price to them, the proxy will buy the item for you, the item will ship to their warehouse, and they can ship it to you from there.

I recommend these proxies:

• Zenmarket is the best proxy for most people.

• For some people, From Japan will be significantly cheaper than Zenmarket, but this depends on what country you live in. You MUST read the "About declared values" section below before using this proxy. I should also note that From Japan's customer service is not as good as Zenmarket's, but they make up for it by offering potentially huge savings over Zenmarket if you live in one of the applicable countries (read the "About fees and charges" section for more info).

I generally recommend that people in the US go with From Japan over Zenmarket, but US customers should still read the "About declared values" section so you know what to do if you have a parcel containing more than $800 worth of goods.

Here's my thoughts on a few other proxies:

• If you just want to buy and ship one item at a time, or you're only interested in buying from one particular store, Dejapan is a newer proxy that surprisingly boasts a 0 yen service fee. However, if you want to simultaneously place orders with a few different stores and pack all of the received items together in one parcel for international shipping, then Dejapan's service fees will be more expensive than the others because Dejapan charges fees for package consolidation (packing all your purchased items together into one parcel for international shipping), which Zenmarket and From Japan do for free. It's hard to tell if Dejapan is reliable as their site and policies are a bit confusing, so try this proxy at your own risk.

• I don't recommend using Buyee. Although they've recently reduced their service fees to closely mimic From Japan's pricing scheme, they still charge for package consolidation, which Zenmarket and From Japan do for free.

• Probably don't use CDJapan's proxy service. They provide the same services as the proxies I listed above but charge higher service fees.

###Using proxies to buy from Yahoo Auctions or Mercari Most proxy sites (including the ones listed above) can easily buy from Yahoo Auctions. You can even bid on auctions in real time through the Zenmarket and From Japan websites.

Mercari, however, has a "ban" on proxies (the only officially allowed proxy is Buyee, but Buyee users are blocked from buying most of the items on Mercari anyway). Luckily, since Mercari can't really enforce this ban, there are proxies that can still buy anything from Mercari: Treasure Japan, vv.Japan, Neokyo, Japonica Market and Goody-Japan are a few examples. Personally, I use Treasure Japan; it's a one-man operation that's very reliable and quite fast with buying, but their fee is slightly more expensive than the others. Two things to note about Mercari proxies:

• I'm not sure which ones are able to change the declared value of your parcel, which you might need to do to avoid customs fees (see the "About declared values" section below). Treasure Japan does not allow you to change the declared value.

• Some items on Mercari are highly sought-after and can sell out extremely quickly. If you're interested in such an item, you'll need a proxy that can respond to your order super quickly and snatch it up before anyone else does. I recommend Treasure Japan for these situations, as they are sometimes able to secure items just minutes after you send them your order.

###Mail forwarding services Mail forwarders allow you to place the order yourself using your own credit card and get it shipped to your own "Japanese mailbox". Some examples are Blackship (best one), Tenso or Transbang. Mail forwarders are more expensive than proxies so you should generally just use proxies instead, but mail forwarding can be really useful where, for example, you want to buy something yourself super quickly because the item might sell out before the proxy can buy it for you. However, I should tell you that for some reason (probably government policy), all mail forwarders require you to send them some identifying documents (e.g. driver's licence) during the sign-up process. If you're not comfortable doing this and worried that they'll sell your personal info on the black market, you better avoid mail forwarding sites.

###Specialised orders White Rabbit Express is an excellent proxy for placing really specialised orders. For example, they'll help you where the seller has no webstore and only accepts orders over the phone, via email, or through Twitter DMs.

###About fees and charges Proxies charge service fees for the work they do, as well as other costs incurred in the process of ordering. These costs include the domestic shipping fee (the cost of getting the item from the seller to the proxy warehouse), as well as a small payment transaction fee (e.g. Zenmarket charges 3.5% on top of whatever you pay to them to cover the costs of facilitating payment transactions). As for service fees, Zenmarket's is a flat 300 yen per item. From Japan's is 300 yen per order from a single store. This is where it gets interesting: say you're ordering 10 items at the same time from Tower.jp - Zenmarket's service fee on this order will be 300 x 10 = 3000 yen, whereas FJ's will be just 300 yen! Another huge benefit of using FJ is that you don't have to pay any service fees on orders from Amazon Japan or Rakuten! That's why I've recommended FJ, but again, make sure you read the "About declared values" section before going with FJ.

It's always a good idea to pay your proxy (or any seller, for that matter) using PayPal, if it's available as a payment method. That way, if you get screwed over, you can file a claim through PayPal, and they might help you get your money back. In my experience, PayPal is really gracious with buyers and will generally just give you your money back at the end of the claim process.

###About declared values If you live in a country where you get charged customs fees (duties or taxes) on low-value imported parcels (such as the UK), you probably don't want to use From Japan or Buyee. If you live in the US, you should be fine to use FJ and Buyee (lucky you!). If you're from Australia or New Zealand, you definitely don't want to use FJ.

The "declared value" of your parcel is the stated value of the items in your parcel, written on the customs documentation which is attached to the outside of your parcel by the sender (the proxy). When your parcel goes through customs at the airport, the customs authority will look at the documents to check the value of the items. If the declared value of your parcel is greater than a specified minimum value, you'll have to pay import fees (make sure you check the website of your local customs authority to find out what that minimum value is). If you live in a country where that minimum value is really low (such that you have to pay fees just for importing a few small things like CDs), you should be able to avoid these fees by changing the declared value of your parcel to be lower than that minimum value. For example, if you live in the United Kingdom, you have to pay value-added tax (VAT) on imported parcels worth more than £15, so you can declare the value of your parcel to be less than £15 and you won't have to pay any fees!

Zenmarket allows you to change the declared value, and you can also get them to throw away any invoices or receipts that might come with your items (so that there's no evidence of the real value of the items, just in case customs opens up your parcel to inspect it). Apparently, From Japan recently stopped allowing customers to change the declared value. Buyee also does not allow you to change declared values. Therefore, if you live in a country where you have to worry about customs duties, you should choose Zenmarket over From Japan and Buyee, and make sure you change your declared value before shipping your parcel out. Keep in mind that if your parcel gets lost in transit, the declared value of the parcel is all that you can claim in compensation...but parcels rarely get lost in transit anyway (especially if you use a reliable shipping method), so that shouldn't worry you too much.

If you live in the US, you won't have to pay any fees on imported parcels unless the declared value is more than $800. Hence, you should be able to use From Japan and Buyee without having to worry about import fees! Of course, if you need to buy more than $800 worth of goods through a proxy, you can buy them through Zenmarket and get them to change the declared value of your parcel to be lower than $800.

If you live in Australia or New Zealand, From Japan now requires you to pay Goods & Services Tax (GST) directly to them before they will allow you to ship out your parcel. That's an extra 10% that Australians have to pay on all their orders through FJ, and an extra 15% for New Zealanders. It is therefore recommended that people from these countries use Zenmarket instead. Zenmarket does require Australians to "pay" GST to them, but they calculate GST as a percentage of the declared value of your parcel, and of course, you can change the declared value to be as low as you want!

#PART III. SHIPPING METHODS

Proxies offer several different international shipping methods, as do some stores like CDJapan. Here's a rundown:

• EMS (Express Mail Service) is the express international method offered by Japan Post. Your parcel is carried speedily through Japan's mail system, gets on a plane to your country, and then gets handed off to your national postal service (e.g. USPS), who will treat it as an express delivery. It comes with full tracking from end-to-end. EMS is therefore pretty fast and reliable (on average, it takes about 7 days to deliver), but it's relatively expensive.

• Airmail Small Packet and International ePacket are two decent, very similar budget shipping methods for parcels weighing under 2kg. Your parcel is only tracked while it's in Japan; as soon as it leaves the country, it's untracked. I've found this method to be quite reliable, ordinarily taking only a week to deliver to me in Australia. Occasionally it takes a little longer, but it always arrives within two or three weeks; I've never had a lost Small Packet/ePacket delivery. I definitely recommend this method if you're regularly shipping small parcels out of Japan, as it saves a lot of money over tracked methods like EMS, and can sometimes be almost as fast!

• Courier companies (DHL / FedEx / UPS) are great, as they always ship express with full tracking, and usually offer more personalised services. In some cases, they can be much more expensive than EMS, but in other cases, they can be cheaper! (this is because couriers calculate their prices differently from how Japan Post does it) Definitely go with the courier company if you find that it's cheaper than EMS and you don't want to use Small Packet/ePacket. I believe Amazon Japan uses DHL by default for most countries, and offers a special rate that's almost as cheap as budget methods like SAL.

• SAL (Economy Air) is cheap and not too slow, but I wouldn't really recommend it, as it's totally untracked and can be very unreliable. Back when I used SAL, I found that it took 2 or 3 weeks on average to deliver, but it sometimes took longer, reaching up to 2 months in extreme cases. And of course, because it's untracked and kind of erratic, there's a higher chance that your parcel will be damaged or even lost in transit. Frankly, there's not much reason to use SAL. For small parcels, Small Packet/ePacket is almost as cheap and much more reliable; and for big parcels, you don't want to risk them being damaged or lost, so EMS will be the safer option. But the decision is totally up to you: I have heard that SAL is a big money saver for some countries, so if you think that the saving is worth the risk, it's your call.

• Surface Mail is the cheapest shipping method because, as the name suggests, parcels sent using this method never travel in the air; they're carried with wheels and ships. Just...don't even bother with this method. Surface Mail parcels are estimated to take 1-3 months to deliver, and because they're in transit for so long, they have a much higher chance of arriving late, damaged, or not at all. It's completely not worth the wait or the risk.