Buying From Japan (or Elsewhere) Made Easy!
As collectors, we often find that recordings or videos are released in other countries, and are much harder to obtain. Sometimes the product is readily available but expensive, and at other times, it could be nearly impossible to find at any price! This article has buying tips to help you order from overseas companies, and take away some of the confusion. As international buyers, we run into such obstacles as shipping and delivery, price and currency, and the language barrier. Hopefully this article will give you a few pointers to use in your international shopping adventures online!
For this article, I will use Amazon's websites as examples...most specifically, I will use the Amazon Japan website to show how you can search for and purchase items online. Familiarity with Amazon's US site will be helpful here--some of Amazon's navigation is done through graphical buttons.
Language Tips: on the Amazon Japan website, you will find a couple of "In English" links on each page. On the Amazon Japan home page, you'll find this in the menu bar below the Amazon department tabs. On other pages, you can probably find it off in one of the navigation menus at the sides or bottom of the current page. Click on this, and any text that can be translated to English on the current page will change. Keep in mind that many of Amazon's navigation items are made from graphic images, and they will NOT be converted to English. Still, the "Add To Cart" button is the same color and shape as what you'd find on the US site, as are the Checkout buttons. Other graphical clues (such as the shopping cart) are consistent throughout Amazon's sites as well.
Searching Tips: in many cases, doing a typical Amazon search will locate your items. There are exceptions, however, for which I'll give you an example below. Amazon's searches are likely powered by searching the artist, title and keywords entered in their database. Think about how it is set up: some words do not translate easily into other languages, and for some Amazon items, they may not have entered appropriate English keywords to help you locate an item. It is especially frustrating when you know an item was released in Japan, and yet you cannot find it on their site!
What we have to do is get creative. Amazon uses stocking numbers, called ASIN numbers, to track inventory worldwide. So in just about all cases, the ASIN number represents the same identical SKU (stock keeping unit) around the world. With that in mind, try going to the Amazon US site, and searching for the item you want. If you find the item, the title may very well say "[IMPORT]" as part of it. If you're confident you've found the item, scroll down to where you see Product Information on the page. Locate the ASIN number. Copy this number, paste it into the general "All Products" search box, then start your search. In most cases you'll jump right to the product you were looking for! Most likely, you'll see that the item's title is all in question marks. Hopefully there will be a product image for you to verify that you've chosen the correct item; if not, you would have to take your chance on getting the correct item. Buyer beware!
I had an example recently of using this search method. Santana's Caravanserai was released on SACD in Japan; among SACD collectors, it is a "holy grail" recording, and difficult to find in the US for a decent price...if we can find it at all! Going to Amazon's Japan site, I could never find it listed. Instead, I went to the Amazon US site and located it there. (Current price is $63.99!) I grabbed the ASIN number from Amzon US (which is B00005GA18), dropped it into their All Products search, and located it that way. The title and artist were all in question marks (in other words, they do not translate to English), but the image showed it was indeed the correct item. With shipping, and the current exchange rate, I estimated the same disc would have cost me about $35-$36 US.
Pricing and Currency Tips: when I've ordered from Amazon UK and shopped at Amazon Japan, I've noticed that the prices of the items drops when you put them into your shopping cart, provided you've already given them a shipping address. These are usually excise, usage or consumption taxes that are applied to these items when shipped to their "home" country. While the saving is not huge (the aforementioned Caravanserai SACD was priced at 3,490 yen but showed up in my cart as 3,350 yen), it is a few percent different.
As for the currency, you're at the mercy of the world's exchange rates, which fluctuate by the minute. Fortunately, you can often get good deals if the rate is favorable for your country. What I do is take my Amazon prices and visit this online currency converter website:
http://www.xe.com/ucc/
This gives me a ballpark idea of what an item will cost me. Note that this should not be taken literally: you should check with your bank or credit card company to see what their policy is about foreign purchases. Many will use their own exchange rate, and may also add a small currency conversion fee to the transaction. It is just something to be aware of as you shop at international online stores, so there are no surprises.
Shipping Tips: I've found that Amazon Japan's shipping rates are not as expensive as some other online merchants. For example, HMV Japan insists on sending packages via air freight, and the charges are much higher. Amazon Japan appears to use their local postal service ("International Economy" is Amazon's shipping method), so the rates are lower. Their shipping fee is 600 yen per shipment, and 300 yen per CD (other per-item charges are different...books are higher, for instance). Amazon also offers expedited shipping for a higher fee.
Shopping Tips: we've covered the basics of ordering online at Amazon Japan (and elsewhere), but the real fun is searching and shopping for items! There are a couple of things to look out for, but it's basic common sense.
CDs and SACDs: these will play the same in any player around the world, so there are no compatibility concerns here.
DVD-Audio and DualDisc: unknown, although the video content may or may not hamper the ability to use the disc. DualDisc has a CD side and a DVD side; the DVD side could simply have audio content, but often, the DVD side has video content.
DVD-Video: these are subject to both format concerns (NTSC vs. PAL) and region encoding. Discs destined for the US are Region 1, where region-free discs are often called Region 0. Some people own players that can play discs from all regions, and others can play both formats. Just be sure what you are capable of playing before you order a video from overseas!
Video Games and Consoles: certain international restrictions prevent the sale of game systems or individual games to other countries. Nintendo, for instance, does not allow retailers to ship game systems to countries other than where they were intended for sale.
Electronics: some may have the same restrictions as video games, but you also need to keep in mind that the voltage and power connectors will be different.
Hopefully these tips will help you shop online at stores that sell internationally. If you have any other comments, visit our forum and leave us a message, or send a private message to one of our moderators.
Posted on Dec 15, 2005 at 4:59 pm by Rudy.
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