Yes, I know that I should’ve written my Buyee review on my blog months ago. But with so many things that I want to talk about on my blog, I only managed to write about my Buyee review for this week’s blog post.

So, what in the world is Buyee, you wonder?

Well, Buyee is a Japan proxy service that will buy items from Japanese websites that don’t ship overseas on your behalf.

If you want to buy on websites like Yahoo! Japan Shopping, this is the only way for you to get the items from there.

Of course, you can always ask anyone who lives in Japan to buy the items for you.

But that’s not the option for many of us.

This is where a Japan proxy service like Buyee comes in handy.

As you can see here, Buyee isn’t the only player in town.

There are plenty of Japanese proxy services out there to choose from.

But Buyee tends to be the one that many people are familiar with thanks to its seamless integration with online marketplaces such as Yahoo! Japan, Rakuten Rakuma, Mercari, and ZOZOTOWN.

So, how does Buyee fare as a Japan proxy service?

Should you consider using it if you want to buy something from Japanese websites that don’t ship overseas?

I’ll cover everything you need to know about Buyee in this Buyee review post.

Just to be clear that everything that I share with you in my Buyee review post is based on my own experience.

Buyee doesn’t compensate me for writing about them on my blog. But it’ll be great if I get paid to write about them, though.

What got me to use Buyee

If you’ve read my post about Japan proxy service, then I’m sure that you already know that I recommended Treasure Japan in the blog post.

Just to get you up to speed, it’s the Japan proxy service that I use to get the limited edition of Yowamushi Pedal: Spare Bike manga from Animate.

If I’m going to get something from Japanese websites like Yahoo! Japan Shopping, then I should be coming back to use them again, right?

But for some reason, I didn’t.

So, why did I choose to use Buyee instead of coming back to use Treasure Japan then?

Does Treasure Japan isn’t as reliable as it used to be? Or does the website no longer exist anymore?

The good news is Treasure Japan is still around. And I still recommend them even today since they offer the cheapest commission compared to Buyee.

Okay, it may not be that cheap if you only buy one item. But if you’re planning to buy more than one item, Treasure Japan is much cheaper.

If there’s nothing inherently wrong with Treasure Japan, then why did I use Buyee then?

Well, the reason for that has a lot to do with the ease of use.

Of course, I’m also curious how Buyee stacks up among the Japanese proxy services out there.

So, the only way for me to find out how good Buyee is is to experience it for myself.

And I’m starting off by buying Plastic Tree’s album, Echo and DoorAdore since these albums are no longer available for sale at CDJapan.

My Buyee Review: the buying experience

Remember when I said that Buyee makes the buying experience seamless?

If you happen to land on Yahoo! Japan Shopping item page, it will prompt you to sign up with Buyee so then they can help you with buying the items you want.

Alternatively, you can also search for the items you want on the Buyee website. It will then give you a list of places where you can buy the items.

Found the item you want?

Just add the item to the cart as you would normally would, sign up with Buyee, add a payment option, pay the required item cost and you’re good to go.

There’s no need to go back and forth with the Japan proxy service through emails.

You can complete the whole process with a click of a button.

That was what I did when I bought Plastic Tree’s albums, Echo and DoorAdore on Yahoo! Japan Shopping.

Add the item to the cart, pay the item cost and other associated fees, and wait for them to notify you that they already bought the item for you.

The only downside is that you need to submit your orders one by one. If you’re like me who buys two items, you will need to submit the order separately even if you’re buying from the same seller.

In my case, both albums are from different sellers, anyway. So, I need to submit two different orders.

Amazingly enough, it took them a few minutes to place the orders from me even though I place the order before 7 p.m. Japan Standard Time.

The only thing left for me to do is to wait for them to notify me that the items have already arrived in their warehouse.

How do the commission fees work in Buyee?

When it comes to the ordering procedure, Buyee isn’t that much different from any other Japanese proxy services out there.

Once you submit a request, you will need to pay the item cost along with the commission fees.

The only difference is that Buyee offers four different plans for their service offers.

While some of you will choose to opt for the cheapest plan to save money, I don’t recommend that you skimp on this part.

Imagine if you buy something through Buyee but what you got isn’t the same as what you ordered.

And it’s even worse when the item is damaged or lost during transit.

Normally, you can simply return the items if you happen to get the wrong item, get them replaced if they’re broken, or receive a refund if the item is lost during the delivery process.

But it’s risky when you don’t pick any of their services, especially when you’re like me who is buying a used item.

While the Plastic Tree DoorAdore album that I bought is brand new, the other album that I got was a used one, though.

Sure, you can hope that everything will be fine. But that’s risky since anything can happen and will happen when you least expect it.

By any means, I do recommend that you opt for the standard plan since it covers insured delivery and full inspection of your items when they reach their warehouse.

Yes, you will have to pay an extra 500 yen for the standard plan. And let’s not forget that you will have to pay 300 yen for the service fee too.

But if it can bring you peace of mind, then it’s all worth it.

Checking your order status

Want to know what happened to the item request you submitted?

You can keep track of the progress from your account page.

This is how the order status looks like when you check the progress for one of the items that you ordered.

Not only that you know when they completed the order for you. But you can track when the seller ships the item and reach their warehouse too.

Of course, they will also send you an email notification at every step of the process.

So, you don’t need to log in to your account just to see if there’s any update on your order status.

The shipping process

Here’s what I find surprising about their shipping fee. It seems that their shipping fee for EMS is cheaper than the registered airmail.

That sure does make EMS a no-brainer choice for me.

Keep in mind that whether EMS is the cheapest shipping option for you or not will depend on where you want the items to ship to.

But in my case, EMS is the cheapest for shipping to Malaysia. And that’s good news for me since I don’t have to wait that long for the item to arrive.

What if you buy more than one item and you want them to ship the items together?

If you buy more than one item, you can consolidate the items into one shipping. When you do that, they will ship all items together instead of shipping them separately.

This process will take them another one more day, though, since they will have to recalculate the shipping cost for all items.

You can also add a bubble wrapping option during the shipping process too.

But I find that the bubble wrapping option is rather pricey to me, though.

If you’re buying fragile items, I highly recommend that you add protective packaging to your orders as well.

You certainly don’t want the items to arrive in pieces, do you?

Is Buyee yay or nay?

So, what’s my thought about Buyee? Will I be using Buyee again to buy things that I can’t get from Japanese websites that don’t ship overseas?

Well, the answer is yes, I will use them for my future orders.

But I will only use them if I can no longer get the items that I want from CDJapan, though.

As much as my overall experience with Buyee is positive, I wouldn’t want to use Buyee if I can get the same items from CDJapan.

Well, what can I say? It’s cheaper and I don’t have to pay anything extra too.

A note about Buyee

Just to let you know that Buyee tends to have a special promotion from time to time.

The promotion tends to vary from discounts on international shipping to discounts on their service fees.

They even have promotions for specific websites too.

While many of their promotions tend to apply to first-time users, they do have promotions for existing users as well.

You can always go to the Buyee website and see their latest promotion if you want. But the best way to get notified of their latest promotions is to sign up with Buyee.

Signing up with Buyee is free. If you’re thinking about using Buyee to buy things that you can only get at a Japanese website that doesn’t ship overseas, you can sign up with Buyee right here:

Buy items from Japan with Buyee

In case you’re wondering, I used Buyee to buy another Plastic Tree album, Hakusei, from Mercari too. I’ll talk more about my experience with using Buyee to buy stuff from Mercari in my future blog post.

P.S. Yes, I know that it seems like a segue way from what we just talked about here. But it’s worth pointing out that you may want to have a look at any of my books if you love reading original light novels, particularly in the thriller and suspense genre.

Curious about my books? You can take a look at them right here on my Payhip store:

Buy books by Sekina Mayu on Payhip

Interested in buying any of my books? Don’t forget to use the coupon code SEKINAMAYUBLOG to receive 25% off on your purchase.

Just to let you know that my books are also available in print and on other retailers such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Apple Books.

But you can only get a discount if you buy the books on my Payhip store, though.