Rakuten
- Thread starter coleigh
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Reviving this thread as couldn't find anything else on this discussion. just ordered something today - taking a chance as I couldn't find it on eBay. The bag looks authentic and will let you know my experience when I receive it. I did send an email to inquire more before I made the purchase and am glad to receive a legible response in English
Be very careful about sellers on Rakuten. I bought an expensive Hermes bag from 1 seller in Rakuten (Jewel Aimas/ Ains1) and they sent me the wrong size bag! They refused to acknowledge any responsibility and even accused me of lying! I have to file police report in Japan now which will be a huge headache for me cause I don't speak Japanese. UGH!!
This is the problem buying from a country where you don't speak the language. Also a lot of them only take bank wire transfer and if anything goes wrong, you would have no recourse. I was looking at a plume on their site a while back but decided to pass. Not worth the risk in my opinion.
Yes, it can be risky especially when it's dealing with a foreign language. My experience so far have been nerve-wrecking but overall positive. Some things to look into before you even decide to make a purchase:
1) Does the store have a sign that says "We welcome international customers". This is usually found on the left hand side of the tab when you click on an item
2) check the store information. What type of payments do they accept? Most of them accept bank wire but some stores accept credit cards and even less accept Paypal
3) how will they ship it ? I prefer EMS rather than Tenso but that's because I'm not familiar with the later company.
4) send an email to inquire more about the bag - this will indicate whether they can communicate back in English.
Returns are generally not accepted according to Rakuten so make sure you do your homework. Also there will likely not be any authentication help so you have to assess the bag yourself. Yes, there's risks.
1) Does the store have a sign that says "We welcome international customers". This is usually found on the left hand side of the tab when you click on an item
2) check the store information. What type of payments do they accept? Most of them accept bank wire but some stores accept credit cards and even less accept Paypal
3) how will they ship it ? I prefer EMS rather than Tenso but that's because I'm not familiar with the later company.
4) send an email to inquire more about the bag - this will indicate whether they can communicate back in English.
Returns are generally not accepted according to Rakuten so make sure you do your homework. Also there will likely not be any authentication help so you have to assess the bag yourself. Yes, there's risks.
The easiest way to go for most people is to only deal with sellers who are used to shipping out of Japan. Not that many of them. With all my Rakuten transactions, I have never had the luck to find one. I do use Tenso all the time and find them to work very well. They are also using EMS to ship the item to you. The purpose of Tenso is that you can purchase from JP seller and have a JP address where they can send you the bag. Yes, you do need to be prepared for wire transfer. I do agree that many times there can be a lot of aggravation involved in the transaction and it is not for the faint of heart. Most of the time the seller does not speak English though I did have one funny transaction where they asked me to communicate in English as opposed to machine translated Japanese! One important thing I learned the hard way, was that if you are doing a wire transfer, make absolutely certain that you have the correct name for the account holder. Just having the bank account number is not enough. My last one was like that and it took me 2 weeks to get that straightened out!
I guess my experience was positive so far because I was able to find a seller that is used to dealing with international customers, and accepts foreign credit cards. I'm not comfortable sending bank transfers at all since there might be some protection if I use credit cards. I did have to call my credit card company though to let them know about my transaction as they will typically block these type of unusual stuff.
The communication I got from the seller was good and they kept me updated as to the status of my order.
Guess could be hit/miss depending on the seller. One thing that I don't like about Rakuten is that it seems that they could only post 3 pictures. Some vendors are ingenius enough to cram a few identifying pictures of the bag into one pix but it's still a very small pix.
The communication I got from the seller was good and they kept me updated as to the status of my order.
Guess could be hit/miss depending on the seller. One thing that I don't like about Rakuten is that it seems that they could only post 3 pictures. Some vendors are ingenius enough to cram a few identifying pictures of the bag into one pix but it's still a very small pix.
My very first transaction was the only one to take a credit card and yes, I had to inform the CC company. Sounds like you had a very good seller!
Again, there is no difference from buying from anywhere else, know your seller! I have emailed a seller on the site with the "we ship internationally" sign in their store. Never ever got a reply. Not a single word! And they only take bank transfer. I passed.
Agree wholeheatedly! I have emailed numerous Japanese sellers 5-6 times and still absolutely no answer. One of the funniest thing happened was though in their listing they welcome International Buyer, they do Not accept International Credit Card, no wire transfer, no PayPal and no shipping outside Japan..... Never get that one figured out....
Sorry to be OOT Mod. Rant over.
Sorry for your experience. I guess I must have lucked out on my first try with this site.
Don't think you are off topic. You are right on!
I couldn't figure that one out either!
I've bought from the Rakuten site and it was an easy and recommendable experience,
It was the first time i'd used them and knew nothing about it all - other than the snippets I've read on here.
The seller took a few days to reply to emails, which concerned me, so I emailed the general customer service side of the site (and they will contact the seller if you don't get the responses in the time you expect to be answered) and a couple of days later the seller responded and all was good and corresponded easily after that.
Credit cards were freely used/accepted, and the delivery was EMS - so fast and efficient.
I would recommend them and would suggest understanding and patience if it's your first time transacting with them.
It was the first time i'd used them and knew nothing about it all - other than the snippets I've read on here.
The seller took a few days to reply to emails, which concerned me, so I emailed the general customer service side of the site (and they will contact the seller if you don't get the responses in the time you expect to be answered) and a couple of days later the seller responded and all was good and corresponded easily after that.
Credit cards were freely used/accepted, and the delivery was EMS - so fast and efficient.
I would recommend them and would suggest understanding and patience if it's your first time transacting with them.
With all due respect I don't agree this is a good generic summary of experience with sellers on that site. The site is just like eBay, only it doesn't offer a feedback score system where you can research sellers. I am sure the site is brilliant IF you are in Japan! There are many many many sellers on there. I understand you had good experience with the sellers you used. But a lot of sellers on there DO NOT take credit cards. I have seen many stated bank wire transfer is the ONLY payment they take. And the sellers I tried to contact NEVER replied to me. I do not want to deal with someone who can't even bother to reply to a mere email inquiry. I can't imagine the hassle and headache when something goes wrong.
Bottom line is do as much as research on the seller as you can. Email them, ask questions, see if they response or not. See if you can understand their English. Make sure you are comfortable with the payment option they offer. And authenticate everything!