randall696
Well-Known Member
My first Guitar purchase from Japan (I am based in Europe)
so I wanted an ESP E-II M-I so bad (the Hipshot Bridge variant) but it was very hard to find any shop in Europe offering it and if they very rarely do the prices where 2499€ (2708,65$) and higher which are the regular prices but I always saw them on Japan Marketplaces for way cheaper... so I thought I give it a shot.
Inspired by an Agufish YT Video where he described how he ordered a Guitar from Japan I tried to do it the same way.
There are a lot of shops in JP that do not offer or do not have a licesnse for shipping Items internationally so usually the shops where you get the best deals do not offer Shipping outside Japan.
Here comes in the magic of a Proxy Service.
whats a proxy service?:
you buy the guitar through the proxy service based in Japan the guitar gets delivered to them and then they forward it to your homecountry)
I used ZenMarket for this https://zenmarket.jp/en/
ZenMarket is especially experienced with shipping guitars.
you just paste the Produkt Item URL you want to buy from any shop in Japan to the ZenMarket website,
I used "digimart" here as this is the biggest platform where all JP Guitar Shops list their items for the JP Market: https://www.digimart.net/search?category12Id=359...
they will then find out if its available, and make an offer to you within 24 Hrs how much it would cost you to get it to their warehouse.
Then you can decide if you wanna buy it or not.
If you do they will go ahead and buy it for you.
Once it arrives there you can choose between a variaty of Carriers (FedEx,UPS,DHL etc.) what you want to use to forward it to your Home.
In the end this Proxy service cost me around 20$ for the handling
I additionally booked the "make a padded packing around the original packing" so have it is extra secured during International Transit.
That was another 8$.
So I payed the Guitar plus shipping to them 220.000YEN (1260,57€ / 1366,14$), plus extra packaging 8$, plus handling 20$, plus shipping to me with UPS Express 109$, then a bit of tax and duties at my countrys customs.
And here we go... my new M-I for almost than 1000€ (1083,75$) less then I would have had to pay in Europe
the packaging even from the original shop was super good so my extra booked padded packeging around at ZenMarket wouldnt even have been nessasaery but I was my first order from Japan so I wanted to be safe.
Litte sidenote: Guitar Cases are not a common thing in Japan they tend to only use Gigbags for everything so of cause if you order a brand new E-II in Europe or in the US they usually come in the ESP Hardcases but not in Japan. But since I knew this in advance I already got myself an ESP case for the new beauty.
so I wanted an ESP E-II M-I so bad (the Hipshot Bridge variant) but it was very hard to find any shop in Europe offering it and if they very rarely do the prices where 2499€ (2708,65$) and higher which are the regular prices but I always saw them on Japan Marketplaces for way cheaper... so I thought I give it a shot.
Inspired by an Agufish YT Video where he described how he ordered a Guitar from Japan I tried to do it the same way.
There are a lot of shops in JP that do not offer or do not have a licesnse for shipping Items internationally so usually the shops where you get the best deals do not offer Shipping outside Japan.
Here comes in the magic of a Proxy Service.
whats a proxy service?:
you buy the guitar through the proxy service based in Japan the guitar gets delivered to them and then they forward it to your homecountry)
I used ZenMarket for this https://zenmarket.jp/en/
ZenMarket is especially experienced with shipping guitars.
you just paste the Produkt Item URL you want to buy from any shop in Japan to the ZenMarket website,
I used "digimart" here as this is the biggest platform where all JP Guitar Shops list their items for the JP Market: https://www.digimart.net/search?category12Id=359...
they will then find out if its available, and make an offer to you within 24 Hrs how much it would cost you to get it to their warehouse.
Then you can decide if you wanna buy it or not.
If you do they will go ahead and buy it for you.
Once it arrives there you can choose between a variaty of Carriers (FedEx,UPS,DHL etc.) what you want to use to forward it to your Home.
In the end this Proxy service cost me around 20$ for the handling
I additionally booked the "make a padded packing around the original packing" so have it is extra secured during International Transit.
That was another 8$.
So I payed the Guitar plus shipping to them 220.000YEN (1260,57€ / 1366,14$), plus extra packaging 8$, plus handling 20$, plus shipping to me with UPS Express 109$, then a bit of tax and duties at my countrys customs.
And here we go... my new M-I for almost than 1000€ (1083,75$) less then I would have had to pay in Europe
the packaging even from the original shop was super good so my extra booked padded packeging around at ZenMarket wouldnt even have been nessasaery but I was my first order from Japan so I wanted to be safe.
Litte sidenote: Guitar Cases are not a common thing in Japan they tend to only use Gigbags for everything so of cause if you order a brand new E-II in Europe or in the US they usually come in the ESP Hardcases but not in Japan. But since I knew this in advance I already got myself an ESP case for the new beauty.
