What I have learned about buying radios in Japan.
Below is some information that I wanted to share with everyone if you are trying to purchase radios from Yahoo Japan.
First, many members have turned me onto a service they use called “Japan Auction Center” http://www.japanauctioncenter.com/
I did not use this company. I have been told they do a very good job, but the down side is you have to pay for their services. As I mentioned, I have not used them so I’m hoping some other members will chime in and talk about their accounts with this company. From what I was able to assess on my own, is that if your trying to buy a radio from Japan because it is “So Cheap” the savings can be quickly erased when you add up this companies fee’s and shipping costs. However, if there is a particular model radio you just can’t find anywhere else and you and want it regardless of price, this may be a way to go.
When I set out on this mission, I thought I had some things going in my favor. Number 1, I’m in Japan and have a Japanese mailing address! I’m actually in Okinawa not mainland Japan so, I had to check to see if the seller was willing to ship to Okinawa. Many were not!
The biggest problem I faced was the most obvious, the language barrier. Yahoo Japan can not be translated into English through Google Translate http://translate.google.com/ . Technically, you can translate the front page, but once you log into your account, it no longer works. So in order to over come this, I had to copy and paste everything I wanted to read into another page with Google Translate on it to basically stumble around in the dark until I figured out how to move around the site. This took many hours to figure out just the basics, how to set up an account, how to log in, where to check my mail, how to bid on items and how to contact sellers. This was very hard on the mind and really wore me down.
With all of this, I still needed to get help from some of my wife’s Japanese coworkers.
After finding a radio I wanted and communicating with the seller by converting English into Japanese with Google Translate and getting a seller that would ship to Okinawa, I had to figure out how to pay for the auction I won. This was not as simple as I thought. The site shows “Visa” symbols on it, so I just assumed I could pay with a credit card at the end of the process.
Into order to make payments on Yahoo Japan, you need to have an “Easy Pay” account. In order to fill out the application you have to be able to write in Japanese characters!!!! I tried the copy and paste trick with Google Translate but that was a no go.
Yahoo Japan does not take Pay Pal either.
I went to my wife’s work again and with the help of her coworker we went into the site to try to set up an account. She had to use a computer that was set up to toggle the keyboard between English and Japanese characters in order to fill out the required fields. I found it interesting that she was struggling to do the conversions.
Fields that required Japanese characters were First and Last Name as well as Password’s and a security questions and answers.
While some of this I was able to do via cut and paste, the Google Translate program was unable to convert my last name, because it is not a known word. There is nothing to translate it too.
Even with her help, she still had to call her husband several times to ask questions (He has a Yahoo Auctions Account).
Once we got past that mine field the system asked me to attach my new account we just set up to my BANK OF JAPAN account for payment!
This was the final road block that I could not get past. In Japan, you can not open up a bank account unless you are a CITIZEN of Japan. So, unless I denounce my US citizenship, become a Japanese citizen and open up a bank account I can not buy directly from Yahoo Japan!
So, your then asking “How Did I Get My Radio?”
The radio I won was so cheap, I was able explained to the seller what had happened and asked if I could mail him the money in the mail. I taped a coin the size of an American Quarter to the inside of an envelope and popped it in the mail. But you can see that if this was a larger transaction, say for hundreds of dollars, there would be very little chance of this happening. As it was, the seller asked for my address and phone number to verify that I was not a scammer.
Another problem I faced was that Google Translate does not do a very good job at converting English to Japanese and even when I tried to convert both his and my address into Japanese for the post office it came out all wrong. I had to go to the post office and back to my wife’s coworker 3 times to get it right!
This whole process from winning the auction to getting the radio took more then a month!
As of right now, I see it impossible to get around this and buy from Yahoo Japan directly. All those beautiful radio’s calling out to the world for so cheap and it seems impossible to get at them at those prices!
All this time in Japan….I swear I think I’m turning Japanese, just not enough Japanese to buy from YAHOO JAPAN!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HmDISe8RYY[/youtube]
[youtube]3cShYbLkhBc[/youtube]
[youtube]jiHRm2DioMA[/youtube]
[youtube]HBQ9dm7zaQU
Below is some information that I wanted to share with everyone if you are trying to purchase radios from Yahoo Japan.
First, many members have turned me onto a service they use called “Japan Auction Center” http://www.japanauctioncenter.com/
I did not use this company. I have been told they do a very good job, but the down side is you have to pay for their services. As I mentioned, I have not used them so I’m hoping some other members will chime in and talk about their accounts with this company. From what I was able to assess on my own, is that if your trying to buy a radio from Japan because it is “So Cheap” the savings can be quickly erased when you add up this companies fee’s and shipping costs. However, if there is a particular model radio you just can’t find anywhere else and you and want it regardless of price, this may be a way to go.
When I set out on this mission, I thought I had some things going in my favor. Number 1, I’m in Japan and have a Japanese mailing address! I’m actually in Okinawa not mainland Japan so, I had to check to see if the seller was willing to ship to Okinawa. Many were not!
The biggest problem I faced was the most obvious, the language barrier. Yahoo Japan can not be translated into English through Google Translate http://translate.google.com/ . Technically, you can translate the front page, but once you log into your account, it no longer works. So in order to over come this, I had to copy and paste everything I wanted to read into another page with Google Translate on it to basically stumble around in the dark until I figured out how to move around the site. This took many hours to figure out just the basics, how to set up an account, how to log in, where to check my mail, how to bid on items and how to contact sellers. This was very hard on the mind and really wore me down.
With all of this, I still needed to get help from some of my wife’s Japanese coworkers.
After finding a radio I wanted and communicating with the seller by converting English into Japanese with Google Translate and getting a seller that would ship to Okinawa, I had to figure out how to pay for the auction I won. This was not as simple as I thought. The site shows “Visa” symbols on it, so I just assumed I could pay with a credit card at the end of the process.
Into order to make payments on Yahoo Japan, you need to have an “Easy Pay” account. In order to fill out the application you have to be able to write in Japanese characters!!!! I tried the copy and paste trick with Google Translate but that was a no go.
Yahoo Japan does not take Pay Pal either.
I went to my wife’s work again and with the help of her coworker we went into the site to try to set up an account. She had to use a computer that was set up to toggle the keyboard between English and Japanese characters in order to fill out the required fields. I found it interesting that she was struggling to do the conversions.
Fields that required Japanese characters were First and Last Name as well as Password’s and a security questions and answers.
While some of this I was able to do via cut and paste, the Google Translate program was unable to convert my last name, because it is not a known word. There is nothing to translate it too.
Even with her help, she still had to call her husband several times to ask questions (He has a Yahoo Auctions Account).
Once we got past that mine field the system asked me to attach my new account we just set up to my BANK OF JAPAN account for payment!
This was the final road block that I could not get past. In Japan, you can not open up a bank account unless you are a CITIZEN of Japan. So, unless I denounce my US citizenship, become a Japanese citizen and open up a bank account I can not buy directly from Yahoo Japan!
So, your then asking “How Did I Get My Radio?”
The radio I won was so cheap, I was able explained to the seller what had happened and asked if I could mail him the money in the mail. I taped a coin the size of an American Quarter to the inside of an envelope and popped it in the mail. But you can see that if this was a larger transaction, say for hundreds of dollars, there would be very little chance of this happening. As it was, the seller asked for my address and phone number to verify that I was not a scammer.
Another problem I faced was that Google Translate does not do a very good job at converting English to Japanese and even when I tried to convert both his and my address into Japanese for the post office it came out all wrong. I had to go to the post office and back to my wife’s coworker 3 times to get it right!
This whole process from winning the auction to getting the radio took more then a month!
As of right now, I see it impossible to get around this and buy from Yahoo Japan directly. All those beautiful radio’s calling out to the world for so cheap and it seems impossible to get at them at those prices!
All this time in Japan….I swear I think I’m turning Japanese, just not enough Japanese to buy from YAHOO JAPAN!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HmDISe8RYY[/youtube]
[youtube]3cShYbLkhBc[/youtube]
[youtube]jiHRm2DioMA[/youtube]
[youtube]HBQ9dm7zaQU
920s for 100$ 
Interesting, but not surprising.
