Buying MF stuff from Japan?

I haven’t had any probems buying or selling with Japanese sellers or buyers, but I don’t have too many problems on eBay or with other internet sales in general. I do my research, try to know what I should look for, what the likely problems are with whatever I’m buying, and I allow for likely repair costs when determining my maximum price. I look for sellers who are experienced and have a good track record, or if they don’t have many sales, that they seem like normal people selling items they’ve used personally. If I have doubts (e.g. a seller who sells mainly folk art, but happens to have one photographic item listed), but I’m still interested, I might contact the seller with a question, mainly to see if they seem to know what they’re talking about.

Ariston said:

We should make a thread with a list of people we've had good experiences with from Japan.

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It would probably make more sense to make a list of people we've had poor experiences with in Japan (it would be a much, much shorter list).
I'd echo a lot of positive responses above. I'd only add that the one time I had a major delay was because of Canada Customs, and they're an inscrutable black box. As for customs charges, I'd been told that it's random. I very often -- perhaps even most of the time -- never have to pay customs from japan. I also try to get expedited shipping, rather than regular or economy.

Never had a problem with the 10 or so purchases I've made from Japan. Rating (quality and quantity), see what other items they sell (high quality or low quality), return policy, etc. Look at the seller skeptically once, twice, thrice. I've not purchased from a seller because at some point I didn't get good feeling for one reason or another. Delivery really usually pretty fast. Reviews (from a lot of sale and reviews) need to be 100% or maybe 99.9% positive.

Darko Kamer said:

Has anyone been purchasing camera gear on fleabay from Japan? How did the sale go? did the gear arrive on time? and was it in the condition described?
Need a few things for my Pentax 67 and it looks like most if not all of the local sources have dried up; but lots of stuff still on fleabay. I've heard some horror stories though.

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Given how many photo items I have purchased from Japan (and South Korea) I call it a safe bet, so long as you read the description fully and examine the photos. Then run a search for that particular item offered form Japan and check if different seller does not offer same exact item, which runs into of my theories for Japanese sellers, not confirmed by any means and could be coincidence of sorts.

So that theory goes like this: some use a kind of photo gear depot, that stores and photographs items being offered, then this is pitched to external outfits at some sort of discount. It ends up being offered on ebay from more than one seller at somewhat different prices and varying shipping costs. This CAN lead to ordering an item, paying for it and ... not getting it, with a typical response "there was something wrong with the item". Refunds are quick and no problem.

What drives my theory further is that sometimes when you ask for additional information or photos you will not get it. Delays in such cases are strange and explanations even more so.

One thing to check though is how seller cancelled order. Recently I had one cancelled on me, refund made right away, then ... reason for order cancellation was "at buyer's request". I contacted ebay and they fixed it while marking seller for cancellation reporting abuse.

Having said all above, I have no issues searching and buying from Japan. Those in US (not sure about Canada) have no customs fees for any used photo gear, so price paid is final. A few times I had ordered for US address, delivery was fast, typically withing a week to 10 days and by EMS.

Shipping charges are all over the place, something to keep in mind considering a piece. It is clear some sellers lower item's price only to recover it in shipping charges.

Listing title and description CAN be an odd ball event. Enough times have I found an offer with Mint / Near Mint in the title, only to see internal fungus, heavy haze etc. At least once I saw a Mint camera that from photos alone survived a war somewhere. But all this is rare enough and every time there was a seeming match between title/photos/description I have received the expected.

One good thing about Japanese sellers is lots of high quality photographs. But do bear in mind that, if you cannot see a specific side of an item, ask for it as it may hide a problem, rare but happened too.

Overall, selection of Japanese made gear is vast on that end of ebay, and prices mostly very good (with some crazy people trying to skewer the uninitiated, the case in all ends of ebay though). Some sellers do offer / accept offers/discounts, many do not. If you don't see a cap on a lens/body, it is more than likely you will not get one no matter how you ask for it, including offering higher payment. There is a separate cap market, apparently.

Have fun, be smart, dig in, and ... hopefully enjoy.

wyofilm said:

Never had a problem with the 10 or so purchases I've made from Japan. Rating (quality and quantity), see what other items they sell (high quality or low quality), return policy, etc. Look at the seller skeptically once, twice, thrice. I've not purchased from a seller because at some point I didn't get good feeling for one reason or another. Delivery really usually pretty fast. Reviews (from a lot of sale and reviews) need to be 100% or maybe 99.9% positive.

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Probably a little harsh with that 99.9%. Devil is in the detail, read any neutrals or negatives to see what they are and if there is a response. I've bought confidently from down to 98.5% or so, but each case is different. The lower the rating the communication I do, including bringing up the rating in the exchanges. Nothing is perfect, things happen not necessarily by intent. You can see that sometimes when there was a few bad ones in a row, then things got fixed quick and no negatives for months after that, a good sign to me.

And keep overall volume in perspective. To me 99% on 10k sales is not the same with10 sales.

Witold said:

Probably a little harsh with that 99.9%. Devil is in the detail, read any neutrals or negatives to see what they are and if there is a response.

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Agreed, some people can never be made happy and leave negative feedback even when they get a 100% refund etc. On all ebay transactions, I look for the negative feedback and carefully read any responses. If the selling posts a reactive, jerky reply to the negative feedback like "The buyer is an idiot.", you can be assured they will act like this to you if there is a problem. If they are apologetic and say "I'm sorry your weren't happy with the transaction, even after we refunded your money" or just don't reply at all, they are probably OK to deal with. But if it's a high end item might warrant a message to them about the item to test their response time before purchase. The few transactions with Japanese sellers that didn't match the description, they were very apologetic and instantly offered to refund my money on return of the item.

I hope it’s ok for me to say so, there’s one seller in particular that stands out in my experience: cameralovelove... a 100% rating with over 7000 sales, an impressive track record. They aren’t always the cheapest, but communication and customer service along with description accuracy and reliability have always been excellent.

Darko Kamer said:

Has anyone been purchasing camera gear on fleabay from Japan? How did the sale go? did the gear arrive on time? and was it in the condition described?
Need a few things for my Pentax 67 and it looks like most if not all of the local sources have dried up; but lots of stuff still on fleabay. I've heard some horror stories though.

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There are horror stories about buying from Canada, the United States, Europe, Down Under, Asia, etcetera. Unfortunately, here are shady people everywhere.

I've bought one large format lens from Japan. Great transaction. Many on here (Photrio) and Large Format Photography Forum have bought from Japanese Sellers and are very happy.

I've bought a couple things from Japan. What I have noticed is everything is "excellent++++++" and so on. So, that means nothing. They are very thorough in their descriptions though. Excellent++++ items being described as having oil and fungus. If the description is not detailed I look elsewhere. By doing this I have had good experiences.

When you see " there is no tiny haze (or fungus)" that is followed by line by line "there is no this, no that" etc, ... ask, because that "no" in there could possibly be a ghost and was not meant to be. Just had one of these.

But again, be thorough in digging through a listing and all is well.

I've bought a Pentax 6x7 MLU + 105mm f2.4, as well as 55mm f4 and 135mm f4 lenses separately from Japanese sellers, all without any issues. They tend to provide very detailed photos and descriptions of the items in my experience.

I've never had an issue with any Japanese sellers. In fact, the majority of the issues I have had with sellers have mostly been American sellers.

That being said, living in the U.S., I tend to deal mostly with other Americans for the majority of my purchases (quicker shipping times). Honestly, I don't think the country matters much when it comes to this type of stuff, so long as we're not talking about third world countries. And even that's only speculation. But I have heard many horror stories of people buying stuff from various third world countries and having problems with customs seizing goods for no reason, valuable things getting frequently "lost in the mail", and sellers disappearing off the face of the earth. But Japan, China, Western Europe, North America, Australia, and even Russia and the post Soviet Block countries all seem to be okay, from my experience.

One thing I will say about Japan is my purchases from there are often accompanied by a hand written letter (always in English), and a tiny gift like a paper crane, tea bag, or candy. That's a nice little gesture you don't see too often from most other countries.

I've bought a few things, mostly went well, there's are the time I keep in mind.

1. Condition rating is often, optimistic. At best. Look closely at the pictures, particularly lens coatings and separation.

2. I'm cautious about sellers with only a few hundred feedback. I assume they're running from bad feedback.

3. Look at the little details, are they right. Like does it look like that lf lens started life in that shutter or was this put together from a couple beat up lenses with the nicest looking parts.

Shipping has been pretty quick for me. I'm in the Northeast us, and it takes me about as long to get something from Japan on eBay as it takes to get a freestyle order from CA.

I have bought a lot from Japanese sellers on eBay, and have always had good experiences. A couple of comments:

1. as mentioned the way they use words like “excellent”, “mint”, “very good” is pretty divorced from the actual meaning of those words. I just pretend that the words they use are some words that sound like English, but aren’t. I study the pictures very carefully and make my determinations that way. I also look for descriptions in the body text where they say things like “Lens Fungus: none” to make my determination, because those are factual statements that can be used for a refund if they are wrong. “Excellent” is an opinion.

2. look to see if they list “EMS” shipping. If the item is shipped EMS, I usually get it in the US in a little over a week. If they don’t ship EMS, it can take over a month to receive.

Mainecoonmaniac said:

Neither did I. I bought a Fujifilm GW860II and a GSW680 from Japan and they arrived within a couple of weeks. I think in Japan, there's a glut of analog cameras.

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I wonder if the Chinese are knocking cameras and lenses off and selling them to the Japanese to re-sell?

I made one offer less than the posted price for a 4x5 lens and the Japanese seller came down about 8%. I didn't buy the item. Another seller refused to lower his price so I bought it. Both sellers were at 100%. Another order I placed and was charge on my credits] card. But changed my mind after looking at the pictures more closely. I got the credit back although there was a screw up in the process at first. Delivery was very fast, I believe a few days to NJ. Faster the China camera I ordered.

Alan Edward Klein said:

I wonder if the Chinese are knocking cameras and lenses off and selling them to the Japanese to re-sell?

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Sounds like an expensive proposition for a limited market.