Rakuten thread

[botulismo]

Sorry if I'm posting this to the wrong subforum. I searched and couldn't find any mention of it other than that the site existed on here. I noticed that Rakuten is promoting that many of their stores now ship to the US. I know they've been doing this for at least a few months. They also have an auction portion but this is not included in the automatic machine translation, so I'm not sure if they also have a policy about shipping internationally.

I just got paid so I'm doing a test order from a seller on there. I got about 14 Famicom and Disk system games (about half and half) for about $100 including shipping. Took about 2 hours to get a shipping notification. Only about 2000 yen for EMS shipping for everything. The shipping price does vary by seller, so make sure you check which seller you use.

Anyway, I'm going to let you guys know when I receive my order how the complete experience was. You can find their US site here: http://global.rakuten.com/us/ if you're interested in browsing around. They also have several localized versions for other countries at the bottom. The only difficulty I could foresee someone having is that when you go through their "Quick Checkout" it doesn't automatically assume from your address that you are an international customer. Make sure you select International shipping. Otherwise the experience was smooth. Another thing you'll want to pay attention to is that different stores accept different methods of payment. Most seem to accept VISA/Mastercard/Etc. or Paypal, though.

The main thing is that it's just nice to be able to order from a Japanese site without a middleman.

[botulismo]

So, I received my order from the Rakuten store "gamepara." If you search for famicom stuff, you will find results from them almost guaranteed. They are one of the bigger retro gaming stores on there. As I have more experiences with other stores on this site, I'll continue to update this thread. Eventually I hope to make a full review on my blog that consists of these posts.

As far as I'm concerned at this point, I will definitely buy from gamepara again. One thing you will need to note when buying from Rakuten: shipping is not included on the initial invoice when you pay for your shopping cart. After selecting international shipping, you can review the specific store's policy (it may be in Japanese) to get a general idea what you'll be paying. The shipping will be added on and charged to your credit card with the total amount of goods once the store has prepared the order. When you order from gamepara, you have only one option for shipping if you live outside of Japan, which is EMS (Global Express).

One nice thing about gamepara is that their shipping gets cheaper the more you purchase. It starts at about ¥2500 and every ¥5000 you spend it gets ¥500 cheaper, until eventually shipping is free. So, if you've got a lot to buy, it's better to buy it all together. They shipped the package within hours of my order. They communicated with me every step of the way, mostly with automated replies as steps were completed in Japanese, though they did send a personal message in English when the item shipped. With the Japanese emails, Google or Bing's translate tool helped me enough to know what was going on.

It came in a cardboard box (much better than the manila envelopes I've gotten from other places.) Everything came wrapped in bubble wrap. Everything is clean, and most of the disk game cases are in pretty good shape. It also came with a notice in Japanese that basically showed how to clean your famicom cartridges... with Japanese brand products of course. A few of the disks are in immaculate condition. Doki Doki Panic has no save game on it.. Everything seems to be what it says it is (knock on wood, I haven't tested everything.) I didn't order any Famicom game that included a box, but some games with boxes are available.

So, I had a great experience. I picked up a bunch of games that I wanted to get in one fell swoop rather than piece by piece over Ebay. Things were much cheaper on Rakuten overall versus their US counterparts. I don't think any game I picked up was much more than ¥1000. The only place that I've ever found Famicom games cheaper is Rising Stuff.

Unfortunately, I can imagine that there would be a few problems for some people. It may be hard and expensive to arrange for returns (and therefore pointless to do them) if you get a misshipped item or if you get a disk that's been copied over. Rakuten itself uses google translate to translate the auctions into English, so sometimes the meaning of a phrase can be shrouded in mystery. If I was a collector who wanted games that had been graded, I would stay away from Rakuten. Rakuten seems more geared towards people who want to play games rather than collect them. There is no grading on the product, and there aren't that many games on any Rakuten store that I saw that include the box and manual. If the box is included, they tend to show a picture of the box instead of a picture of the cartridge. Still, you may find the odd hidden gem. I do like that they're more geared towards the gamer than the collector and I hope it stays that way. It's nice to have an option over buying the $40 A+ perfect condition version of a game you'd just like to play.Also, if you live in the US, the conversion rate favors the yen, not the dollar at the moment. These are all just warnings. I had no problems with my order whatsoever. I do recommend people use them as an option.



(Bigger version here http://i54.tinypic.com/30cc0hc.jpg)

[mobiusclimber]

Thanks for all the info on this site. I'm going to check it out now. Dunno that I'll be buying anything tho, since I tend to do most of my shopping from Rising Stuff or a couple of Ebay sellers, and if it's games for me I tend to want boxes at least. Always nice to see more places to buy Japanese items from tho. Wonder how they're dealing with the new announcement regarding shipping to the US tho? I guess your purchase wouldn't matter since EMS under a pound is fine, but anything over that is unshippable.

[botulismo]

Thanks for all the info on this site. I'm going to check it out now. Dunno that I'll be buying anything tho, since I tend to do most of my shopping from Rising Stuff or a couple of Ebay sellers, and if it's games for me I tend to want boxes at least. Always nice to see more places to buy Japanese items from tho. Wonder how they're dealing with the new announcement regarding shipping to the US tho? I guess your purchase wouldn't matter since EMS under a pound is fine, but anything over that is unshippable.

Hey, I'm glad you liked it. That's why I put the warning that people who want the box would be less likely to find something here. What announcement are you talking about? I haven't seen anything. I actually just received a Twin Famicom a couple of weeks ago via EMS from Japan and it was I'm sure over a pound.

[nintendodork]

Japan is restricting packages to the US to be under a certain weight (less than a Famicom) due to recent terror attempts via airmail.  It went into effect as of November 17th as far as I know.

[botulismo]

Japan is restricting packages to the US to be under a certain weight (less than a Famicom) due to recent terror attempts via airmail.  It went into effect as of November 17th as far as I know.

Oh, thanks. I looked it up and apparently anyone with an account with Japan Post is unaffected by this. So, basically it won't affect some stores that do mail order as long as they have a Japan Post account. Individuals who ship will have issues.. Rakuten's stores as far as I know are actual stores, so I wonder if they will be affected. If someone were to order from an auction that shipped internationally and not use a middleman service that had a Japan Post account, there's an issue. Also, if you had a friend in Japan who shipped you things, again, there would probably be a problem.

From http://www.majiroxnews.com/2010/11/13/japan-post-to-stop-parcels-to-us/:

"Private consumers will be affected by this ban, however individuals and businesses with JPO commercial accounts will not be affected."

Thanks again for the heads up. It's good to know! Hopefully this ban is just temporary. This is sort of stupid. It's basically saying "Yeah, the terrorists win. We'll stop all mail over a pound just on the slim possibility that something happens and comes from Japan of all places." Like DRM, it's going to do nothing to hurt the people who want to do harm, only make the lives of the people who actually need the service harder.

[Kiddo]

Man those carts look so good! I'm putting in an order tonight! (if I can smooth talk my gf to borrow me her credit card    )

Oh, and thanks for the very detailed and informative post botulismo. I'm not ever really comfortable to shop online unless I know of some one who has done it before and has had no problems 

[botulismo]

You're very welcome Kiddo. I realized I could just put a link to the specific store I bought from on here. http://search.borderless.rakuten.com/borderless/search.action?sid=gamepara&l=en&vm=2 There you go. Of course there are other stores, but if you are going to buy from the same one I did there you go. Make sure you sign up for an account. I hope you have as good of luck as I do. Also, I'm sure people would like to hear about your experiences too.

Another thing I should have mentioned is that everything came wrapped in cellophane. It was definitely a nice touch and something I'm not used to.

[Kiddo]

I am composing a buy order from Rakuten as we speak 

One question: When buying Famicom games from Japan. Isn't there a 100% chance that they will be in japanese?

I was thinking about buying Final fantasy 1 & 2.  But then I thought that if they are in japanese I would have no use for them since they are very story driven.

EDIT: I am talking about this game http://en.item.rakuten.com/gamepara/4961012931019/

[Yukima]

Wow ... thank you very much for letting us know about these shops!  I was near pulling my hair out trying to find ways to avoid paying so much for stuff on Yahoo Japan auctions (shipping + middleman fees... ughhhhh!!)

I'm looking at Gamepara's stuff as I'm typing this... maybe will place an order tonight! 

[amurphy245]

Final fantasy will be in japanese yes so i wouldnt bother,most famicom games and many other retro games can be played fine with no knowledge of japanese becouse the games are so simple and not text heavy.
Post Merge: November 19, 2010, 04:13:58 pm
Thanks a lot for introducing the site,i may place an order before christmas,some things look pretty cheap!

[Kiddo]

Holy shit... I just spent 5 hours on the gamepara site and I put in an order for over 60 games 

[botulismo]

That's great that you guys are all finding what you're looking for!

Also, some Japanese Nintendo games still have English text for some reason. Of course, these are often the games that really wouldn't matter if they had English or Japanese. Like the Japanese Super Mario Brothers 1+2 both have all English text, even when you get to the Princess and she speaks.

I think this may be because they are releases of arcade games. Not sure though. It seems to correspond pretty well though.

I would say avoid RPGs, consider everything else. A more action adventure than RPG game like Zelda you can get through with just a guide or just trial and error.

Just leave some games for me haha

[Yukima]

One nice thing about gamepara is that their shipping gets cheaper the more you purchase. It starts at about ¥2500 and every ¥5000 you spend it gets ¥500 cheaper, until eventually shipping is free. So, if you've got a lot to buy, it's better to buy it all together.

So... *quickly calculates* ... does that mean that the minimum order amount would have to be about ¥25,000 in order to get free shipping? 

Or am I wrong? 

But hey, ¥2500 for shipping isn't as bad as what I had to pay for other things I got from Japan!

[botulismo]

One nice thing about gamepara is that their shipping gets cheaper the more you purchase. It starts at about ¥2500 and every ¥5000 you spend it gets ¥500 cheaper, until eventually shipping is free. So, if you've got a lot to buy, it's better to buy it all together.

So... *quickly calculates* ... does that mean that the minimum order amount would have to be about ¥25,000 in order to get free shipping?  

Or am I wrong?  

But hey, ¥2500 for shipping isn't as bad as what I had to pay for other things I got from Japan!

Actually, I just noticed, it goes from 990 yen for shipping below 20000 yen to free anywhere above. Here's their shipping price guide:



Top is order total. Second line is cost for shipping. From what I can understand of their (Japanese) policies, the only time this doesn't apply is in the case of multiple destinations. Also, if it says Free shipping, it doesn't mean free shipping unless you're in Japan.

Just out of curiosity, I haven't made an order since the restriction was put in place, so I have a question. I just barely missed the new shipping restriction with my second (smaller) order to another seller who I'll bring up as soon as I receive my order. Anyway, does anyone happen to know about how much a Famicom game weighs and how much a disk system game (with the plastic case) weighs? Just trying to figure out how much a pound of games is.

Also, other sellers may use the default Rakuten shipping policy which seems better for small orders but gamepara's system works better for larger orders. If anyone's interested in seeing the charge for this (all EMS) check #4 at http://event.rakuten.co.jp/borderless/infoservice/en/.