Rinkya

The fees are excessive. Some how however you calculate it they have an extra unexpected fee.

I have used Rinkya for the past year and a half, always stomaching the commission and fees to get what I want from Japan which might be unavailable here in North America, or too cost prohibitive.

The poster who reviewed before me has what I consider to be an unrealistic review as not everyone wants to buy items and turn around to sell them for profit. There are collectors who use these sites to acquire goods. Guitars, rare model kits, dolls, car parts, you name it.

The fees posted sound accurate. That being said...

Rarely do I find an auction for anything worthwhile which is less that 1001 Yen. So automatically, if you have a 1500 Yen winning bid, just add 2000 Yen right off the go. Now your item is 3500 Yen.

Now, your item ships to the Rinkya warehouse: add another 1500 Yen. Counting? You're are 5000 Yen, which is roughly $50 US. You went from $15 to $50 and you haven't shipped yet.

This, this is where your blood really gets up. The average shipping price is something like 4200 Yen. I got an email asking if I want to upgrade to Rinkya Prime, which is Fedex. Not like Fedex, it is Fedex. Fedex came to my door and asked for a customs payment after I got suckered into the Prime option which promised a faster delivery.

It didn't get delivered faster. It was the same as SAL (surface air lift: equivalent to economy shipping methods here in North America). I had an item of similar size and value ship from a Japanese distributor around the same time, so I was able to make a comparison.

In case you were still counting, $100 US is what it cost me to get my $15 item home. This math just doesn't cut it.

I tried it again, this time I used the service to win multiple items (7) ranging in value to see if I could maximize the shipping expense. Like a combined shipping discount some ebay sellers use.

Nope, there was no indication that this was a better option, after a $350 charge at Rinkya for 7 items of value in the $20 neighborhood, I had to pay for shipping at $150. Which didn't take long to arrive, via their 'economy' option.

So take all this into consideration for yourself, and ask if it is worth using Rinkya over other sites. I have since terminated my account with Rinkya, their polite and cute emails can't trump the horrid cost of using their service.

Bought many things off Yahoo! Japan Auctions and will continue to once I have money to spend again. Too many personal experiences to list just one.

This is my first time writing a review for anyone. I've been using Rinkya for about 2 months now and I've noticed so many different reviews saying that you shouldn't use this site and to avoid it and that their customer service sucks. All these things made me not want to try it, but I tried it anyway. The thing is, you just have to be smart with what you're doing. You have to understand what fees will be coming. This is what you will be paying:

- Whatever your item's auction ends at, you pay that in USD
- *No matter what you buy, you can always slap on a $15 fee to go with it.*
- If your item's auction ends at 1001 or over, you will be paying a commission fee. Not too sure how it's calculated, but I do know that you will be paying that calculation or $20, whichever is higher.
- International shipping which will be $15 at the very least

*The $15 fee can be avoided for multiple items using Rinkya's Same Seller Same Day discount. I'll give an example that I just did very recently.

A seller on Yahoo Japan was selling a lot of things for just 1 yen, and I was the only person who bid on these items. 1 yen is the equivalent of $0.01 so you know I was ecstatic about bidding on all of the things. I wound up bidding on 21 items. Thankfully no one else bid on them, so I won them for $0.01. This is where the fees come in.

Because my items were all at 1 yen, I avoided commission fees(I always avoid commission fees by buying stuff for less than 1001 yen). Then you have the $15 fees. This is where I had the largest problem ever. All 21 items ended about the same day and they were from the same seller. I believe about 6 of them ended one day and the rest ended the next day. This means that I should've had 2 $15 fees. However, through my understanding of Rinkya's fees page (https://www.rinkya.com/en/front/page/fees), there's a spot towards the bottom that says "Other Fees." This part made me think that it would cost more than $30 to ship all 23 items to Rinkya's warehouse. So now I'm thinking that I should have at most 6 $15 fees, yet somehow I have 13 $15 fees. I was ready to close my bank account and sever all ties with Rinkya out of fear that all those bad reviews were going to come to pass in my life. Fortunately, Elaine answers all of my emails incredibly fast. I don't know if it's her or some reps, but I get all my questions answered within 4 hours. The reply I got said that they at Rinkya would investigate the problems with my account (meaning the 13 $15 fees). So here I am waiting since there was some holiday in Japan that ended on May 7, and when I wake up, I check Rinkya to see if finally someone had dealt with my problem. I go to my Please Pay section, and now I only have 2 $15 fees. There were no late fees since the problem had to be investigated. I was not scammed at all like I thought I might have been. Now I'll be selling these things for $15 each.

Here's the math from this transaction(it is only my 3rd transaction with Rinkya):

Buy everything for $0.21. Add 2 $15 fees. That makes $30.21. Now I have to wait for international shipping which will probably be about $35 at max. $65.21 will be my total. Sell all items for $15 so that's $15 x 21 = $315. $315 - $65.21 = $249.79 profit for me.

So whenever you see a review about Rinkya, just realize that it's probably some first-time customer that doesn't know how to read a fees page or some wannabe troll that gets annoyed because he/she doesn't like the fees that Rinkya has. I don't like the fees either, but at least I'm being smart about it. I buy my stuff for under 1001 yen to avoid commission, and I buy multiple things from the same seller that ends on the same day. That's smart bidding and wise usage of Rinkya's services. If you're planning on buying some really expensive item, and it's just 1 thing, then I'd say use someone else like Jauce.com. I've seen their fees page, and they seem to be pretty fair. As for Rinkya, you've read my review, so hopefully you can make wise bidding decisions like I have and make the most of Yahoo Japan.

The first time i use it and it s not easy to understand what you ll pay in the end. They had some extra fees you haven t been noticed before. I mean it s not very clear when you use it. Specially for the shipping fee from japan to your place. You must choose the shipping method ( EMS, SEA. Ect) but you have to idea how much it ll be! And then you get the surprise " thank you to pay..." The only good thing is the availability of the team ( Vanessa and izumo). Very fast reply from them and high profesionalism. So for me they should refresh their website and explain better what you ll have to pay at the end ( including the international shipping)

Perfect service. I was able to import hard to get products from Japan that other websites couldn't help me with. This was the only website that could help me order the item I wanted.

They were fast with buying the items and the shipping was $29 with the fast Fedex option to Puerto Rico.

My usual proxy is FromJapan, but if you have trouble buying something specific, I recommended Rinkya. Good service, timely responses, and good shipping prices.