Getting Gear Out Of Japan

[Vyn]

Anyone got any postal-forwarding services they recommend, or any decent brokers?

I've been on the hunt for a particular guitar and the only example that I've found for sale is currently listed on eBay for WAY much more than it's actually worth and located in Japan. I've done the hard work of tracing down the source of the over-priced scalper eBay listing and found the actual store with the guitar in stock, need to work out how to get it from the store to a forwarding service and then out of Japan?

 

[narad]

What store? Most will just ship overseas directly without any need of forwarding. If anything, the stores themselves are a lot more "in the know" about how to ship instruments across international borders and customs offices.

 

[Vyn]

G-CLUB Shibuya through Kurosawagakki. Does that sound legit?

 

[narad]

For sure. They'll probably ship that for you. Kurosawa gakki has English-speaking staff around so if you write them a straightforward email (I want to buy this item number, will you ship to Aus) you'll probably get a reply. If that doesn't work hit me up and I can talk to them in person, I live in Shibuya.

 

[Vyn]

For sure. They'll probably ship that for you. Kurosawa gakki has English-speaking staff around so if you write them a straightforward email (I want to buy this item number, will you ship to Aus) you'll probably get a reply. If that doesn't work hit me up and I can talk to them in person, I live in Shibuya.

Wicked, cheers! Email fired away, might shoot you a PM if I don't hear anything for a week-ish

 

[LeftOurEyes]

I've bought 3 guitars from Japan shipped to the US and they all came from the store selling the item, there was no third party for shipping. As Narad said, most stores there will ship no problem.

 

[TheBolivianSniper]

How did you find the actual store from the listing? There's a lot on ebay I like but those prices are utterly outrageous and I have no idea how to find if they're legit or not

 

[USMarine75]

@narad hopefully the shipping is cheaper than what I was looking at lol. $600 shipping for a $200 guitar

 

[Vyn]

How did you find the actual store from the listing? There's a lot on ebay I like but those prices are utterly outrageous and I have no idea how to find if they're legit or not

Most of the sellers are lazy and just copy paste the name of the item from the store onto their eBay listing. You can find it pretty easily from there. In my case I also knew who was the Japanese distributor for the manufacturer I was after and checked their webstore from there. Another technique I've seen particularly with Yahoo Auctions is sometimes they even use the same image hosting URLs that the original listing does so you can search the URL in Yahoo auctions and you'll find the original very quickly.

 

[narad]

@narad hopefully the shipping is cheaper than what I was looking at lol. $600 shipping for a $200 guitar

If the store sells it for him they'll have the company account with the shipper. But things are getting back to normal now so it's likely JapanPost will begin taking new items soon and the prices will go back to normal.

Most of the sellers are lazy and just copy paste the name of the item from the store onto their eBay listing. You can find it pretty easily from there. In my case I also knew who was the Japanese distributor for the manufacturer I was after and checked their webstore from there. Another technique I've seen particularly with Yahoo Auctions is sometimes they even use the same image hosting URLs that the original listing does so you can search the URL in Yahoo auctions and you'll find the original very quickly.

That's usually not lazy sellers. That's re-sellers, and the best they can do as middlemen is to copy-and-paste the local Japanese ad. They're usually not affiliated with the stores at all. The store accounts will usually have the store name as the account name and the resellers will have account names like guitars-japan.

 

[RiksRiks]

If the store sells it for him they'll have the company account with the shipper. But things are getting back to normal now so it's likely JapanPost will begin taking new items soon and the prices will go back to normal.



That's usually not lazy sellers. That's re-sellers, and the best they can do as middlemen is to copy-and-paste the local Japanese ad. They're usually not affiliated with the stores at all. The store accounts will usually have the store name as the account name and the resellers will have account names like guitars-japan.

Maybe not totally related, but what are the most common carriers Japanese music shops use? When I bought my J8 in Osaka said they usually use EMS for worldwide shipping, would that be like shipping through JapanPost? Do those shops even use like Fedex or those western companies at all?

 

[narad]

Maybe not totally related, but what are the most common carriers Japanese music shops use? When I bought my J8 in Osaka said they usually use EMS for worldwide shipping, would that be like shipping through JapanPost? Do those shops even use like Fedex or those western companies at all?

Some use Fedex, but EMS is the most common, so in good times running it to JapanPost is pretty much the same as what the shops will use. However EMS relies on a lot of passenger planes to meet demand, so when those planes stopped coming, they got backed up and eventually had to stop accepting parcels to the US and Europe. I had just sold a guitar to the US 2 weeks prior to the announcement, and it was held from early April until maybe 2 weeks ago? Felt bad for the buyer.

 

[Adieu]

Iirc, EMS = using national post services on each end... for most cases, it works fine, unless one end is like Afghanistan or Zimbabwe or something.


FedEx typically gouges on international

 

[AltecGreen]

G-CLUB Shibuya through Kurosawagakki. Does that sound legit?

For anything from Kurosawa Gakki, follow the instructions in this link: http://www.kurosawagakki.com/english/index.html

It will take up to a week for them to initially respond. They only have a small crew doing international orders and most of that is done at the Shibuya store. I've bought a few from Kurosawa.


An alternate way is to contact G-Club Shibuya via their Reverb page. That method may be quicker than the above.

 

[oddwater]

Does anyone have experience purchasing from Kurosawa Gakki (I'm in the US) using a bank transfer? It seems nice to save money (vs PayPal), but it also seems a little sketchy.

 

[narad]

It's fine. You're probably best off using Wise if doing currency conversion at the same time.

 

[Deadpool_25]

@Vyn did you ever get what you wanted?

 

[/wrists]

It's not on their reverb?

Kurosawa Music Ochanomizu | Reverb

Shop Kurosawa Music Ochanomizu on Reverb

reverb.com

 

[Vyn]

@Vyn did you ever get what you wanted?

The guitar I was looking for at the time I didn't get - however I have since gotten multiple guitars out of Japan. I have a mate down here who runs a second-hand guitar shop specialising in importing from Japan. He uses one of the bigger forwarding services and is able to make it viable due to the volume of guitars he brings in.

 

[soul_lip_mike]

I really want an MX-250. Is that even possible still?