(Updated 03/27/2023)

So you’ve found some great Japanese items online, and you really want to order them!
You search for proxy services, but are soon overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices and the amount of information!

Service fees?
Consolidation?
Storage period?
Which one is the most cost-effective?
Which one has the best shipping options??

Worry not! We’re here to help!
We’ve done the hard work for you, and created an easy-to-understand comparison of the top 5 Japanese proxy services!

Buyee vs. Zenmarket vs. One Map vs. Japan Rabbit vs. DEJAPAN – At a glance

	Buyee	Zenmarket	One Map	Japan Rabbit	DEJAPAN
Service fee/ Commission	300 JPY per Order	300 JPY per item	Zero	Sliding Service Fee + Per Item Fee	ZERO
Plan(s)	Free, 300 JPY, 500 JPY,	none	300 JPY per item (mandatory)	none	FREE
Payment Methods	Credit card PayPal Alipay	Deposit funds in advance: Credit card, PayPal, Cryptocurrency, Bank Transfer	Credit card, PayPal	Credit and Debit Card	Credit card, PayPal
Free Storage Period	30 days, can be extended based on package weight, max 90 days	45 days, can be extended for 50 JPY per item per day, max 90 days	45 days, will be disposed of after 45 days, no exceptions	45 days, can be extended based on package volume	45 days, can be extended for 100 JPY per order per day
Consolidation	500 JPY or 1000 JPY	Included	Included	$2.50 per package, maximum $12.50	100 JPY per Item
Packing Options	Standard (Free) Protective (1,500 JPY) Special (2,500 JPY)	Standard (Free) Reinforcement (1,000 JPY)	At One Map’s discretion	Extra Padding ($3 per package) Fragile Tape ($2 per package)	As-is (Free) Remove Packing (300 JPY) Double (500 JPY) Protective (1,000 JPY)
Shipping Options	EMS, Air Mail, Surface Mail, FedEx, DHL, UPS	EMS, Air Mail, Surface Mail, FedEx, UPS, DHL, SF Express, ECMS Express	EMS, Air Mail, Surface Mail, Air Mail Small Packet, Surface Mail Small Packet, FedEx, DHL, ECMS, Sagawa (Japan only)	EMS, Air Mail, Air Mail Small Packet, Surface Mail, FedEx, DHL	EMS, Air Mail, Surface Mail, FedEx*, DHL (upon Request)

Buyee

First up is Buyee. Their website is certainly big and flashy, as it should be for the current biggest proxy service. But in our opinion, that doesn’t necessarily mean their service lives up to the hype. 

Service Fee

All orders from Yahoo! Auctions, Mercari, Rakuma, and other stores are subject to a flat 300 JPY fee per order. For eBay, it’s a flat rate of $8 per order. (We’re not sure why the currency suddenly changes for eBay, but hey, that’s how it’s listed on their site!)

Plan

Buyee offers the most service plans, with 4 tiers ranging from 0 JPY to 500 JPY. The ‘Lite’ plan is free, but also offers no benefits. The paid plans are: 1 with item inspection (300 JPY), 1 with item insurance (500 JPY), and the ‘Standard’ plan that includes both (500 JPY).

Payment Method

As well as PayPal and credit cards, AliPay’s an extra payment option, but only if you’re paying in Chinese Yuan.

Free Storage Period

Buyee’s free storage period is just 30 days, but you can extend that time for a price that depends on your package’s weight. For packages up to 10kg, the fee is 100 JPY per day. Between 10kg and 20kg is 200 JPY per day, and over 20kg is 300 JPY per day. The maximum storage time is 90 days, after which they’ll dispose of your items.

Consolidation

The consolidation cost depends on what you want to combine. For 2 packages, it’s 500 JPY. Any number higher than that’s 1,000 JPY. But what’s unclear is exactly what a “package” means. Is it a whole order? A single item? Multiple items from an order that happened to arrive together? Your guess is as good as mine.

Packing Options

Your packaging options are ‘leave it up to Buyee’ (free) or ‘Protective’ (1,500 JPY).

Shipping Options

Buyee’s available shipping methods are the same as the ones that we offer, with the addition of UPS.

Summary

Overall, Buyee offers an ok service for fairly middle of the road prices. They do charge a service fee, but it’s per order rather than per item, which helps a little bit.

ZenMarket

ZenMarket offers the ability to search a variety of online retailers right on their website, including Yahoo! Auctions, Rakuten, Rakuma, Amazon, Mercari, and Yahoo! Shopping. They also offer ZenPlus, a service allowing you to order directly from certain Japanese retailers without their service fee. Let’s see how their service stacks up.

Service Fee/Plan

ZenMarket charges a 300 JPY service fee on each item. With no plan levels, it’s a standard service.

Payment Method

The major way ZenMarket differs from other proxies is that you HAVE to deposit funds to your account before you can buy anything. You can use a credit card, debit card, PayPal, international wire transfer, a local bank transfer, or even Cryptocurrency to deposit funds. Here’s the thing though. They charge you a fee for each deposit, meaning you’re paying before you’re even ordering items. The deposit fees differ for each payment method, with 3.5% for credit, debit, PayPal, and Cryptocurrency, and fees varying from 50 JPY to 7000 JPY for bank and international wire transfers.

Free Storage Period

Zenmarket offers 45 days of free storage. The difference is that with ZenMarket, past the 45-day free storage period, every item is charged 50 JPY for every extra 24 hours up to 90 days.

Consolidation

Consolidation is included with all orders.

Packing Options

Anyone buying fragile items can opt for the ‘Framework’ packaging, a 1,000 JPY-option. It’s a decent level of protection (great if you’re buying fragile items), but bear in mind it can add up to 2kg to your parcel’s weight, which can translate into some high international shipping fees. 

Shipping Options

The variety of shipping methods is pretty amazing, depending where you live. ZenMarket offers EMS, Air Mail, Surface Mail, FedEx, UPS, DHL, SF Express, and ECMS Express.

Summary

For the 300 JPY per item service fee, it’s a small comfort that consolidation is included and that they offer so many different choices for shipping. However, their customers seem to spend a lot of time waiting for ZenMarket to “confirm” their items, parcels, and shipping details.

 

One Map by From Japan

One Map (formerly From Japan) has a nicely designed website, with the ability to search multiple online shops at once. However, their fees are a little more expensive than average, and they don’t offer any choice in the way of packing options for your parcel.

Service Fee/Plan

On the surface, One Map boasts no service charge on most orders. But really, that isn’t even true. You’re forced to accept the 300 JPY per item “Plan”, with no way to opt out. Essentially, this is a per item Service Fee, just named differently. 

Payment Method

With From Japan, you can use a credit card or PayPal directly – or use either one to deposit site credit in JPY. For Yahoo! Auctions bids, though, there’s a limit to the amount you can spend every month via credit card or PayPal. Once you hit that limit, you have to deposit funds to use for bids for the whole rest of the month. They aren’t exactly clear about what that limit is, either, so it’s hard to know exactly when you might hit it.

Free Storage Period

In terms of storage, where some proxies start charging per day once free storage ends, when your free 45 days are up with One Map, they dispose of your items.

Consolidation

Consolidation is included with One Map’s mandatory plan.

Packing Options

There are a couple different packaging options for fragile/big items, but you don’t actually have a choice about it. One Map’s team will pack the parcel as they see fit and charge you if they use one of the packing options.

Shipping Options

One upside to One Map is that they offer one of the longest delivery method lists. However, it’s worth noting that their Small Packet option is only available when the total item price is under 30,000 JPY.

Summary

Overall, One Map is an easy website to navigate. But the downside is that they do charge some service fees, and they don’t offer the option to choose how your items are packed.

Japan Rabbit

Japan Rabbit (formerly White Rabbit Express) has an aesthetically pleasing website that’s designed a bit like a smartphone app. It’s ultra-simplified, with no shop fronts, just a request form. The downside is that Japan Rabbit can end up being more expensive than other services.

Service Fee/Plan

Japan Rabbit’s service fees are a little hard to understand at first, but there are two main components:

1. Sliding Service Fee
   • This fee changes depending on the total value of your order. For orders up to $80, this fee is equal to 9.9% of the total. For orders between $80 and $128, the fee goes down to 6.9% of the total. The fee continues to decrease, up to the top tier of 1.2% for orders over $880.
2. Per-Item Fee
   • The per-item fee varies depending on the store, and ranges from $1 to $6. For Rakuma, Yahoo! Auctions, and the PayPay Flea market, the per-item fee is $5, and for Mercari, it’s $6.

Since Japan Rabbit has a minimum service fee of $9, if the total of the Sliding Service Fee and the Per-Item Fee adds up to be less than $9, the service fee becomes $9 by default.

Japan Rabbit doesn’t offer any purchase plans.

Payment Method

Payment can be completed with credit or debit card. Currently, they are unable to accept payment via PayPal.

Free Storage Period

Japan Rabbit offers 45 days of free storage. After the 45 days, each package is charged an additional fee based on the package’s volume, between $0.25 and $3 per day. Maximum storage time is 90 days.

Consolidation

Consolidating two or more packages into a single shipment costs $2.50 per package, up to a maximum of $12.50.

Packing Options

All parcels are packed at Japan Rabbit’s discretion, but they do offer the option to add extra padding for $3 per package, and Fragile tape for $2 per package.

Shipping Options

The shipping options are pretty close to DEJAPAN’s, with the addition of Air Mail Small Packet.

Summary

If you’re willing to pay more for your proxy service, Japan Rabbit may be for you.

DEJAPAN

Last but not least, it’s everyone’s favorite proxy service! (At least we certainly hope so.) We pride ourselves on having friendly and helpful customer service and no service fees!

Service Fee

We don’t charge a service fee or commission. There’s no separate fee for bidding on Yahoo! Auctions, either. Your 1st payment on DEJAPAN is just the item cost, nothing else.

You can order and pay straight away! Even when you’re making an item request. Other sites make you add funds first, and/or wait for a ‘final quote’ – by then, your items could’ve sold out.

Plan

The consolidation plan is free to choose. It gives you the ability to consolidate items before 2nd payment. More on that a bit further down.

Payment Method

We offer payment via credit card or Paypal.

Free Storage Period

On August 1st, 2022, we increased our free storage period to 45 days! Storing an order past the 45 days costs 100 JPY per day. We do ask that you ship your items out within 6 months of arrival, but we’ll never discard an item without checking with you first!

Consolidation

Consolidation costs 100 JPY per item, and has to be done if you chose the plan during 1st payment. It applies even if you only ordered one thing. Because of this, if you plan on only making one order,  don’t forget to uncheck the Consolidation Plan box during 1st payment checkout.

Packing Options

You get to choose from four packaging options, the most of any of the proxies covered here. 

• ‘As-is’ (Free) option is the standard packing option. We’ll add packing materials as normal, and it’s fine for most items. 
• ‘Remove Packing’ (300 JPY) is when we remove packing material as much as possible to make your parcel smaller for international shipping.
• ‘Double’ (500 JPY) is recommended for figures and plastic models.
• ‘Protective’ (1,000 JPY) is comprehensive wrapping for glass, ceramics, and other fragile items.

Shipping Options

Almost all shipments can be sent by EMS,  AirMail, or Surface Mail. DHL is available on request, and FedEx is available to the U.S. and Canada.

In Conclusion…

Our hope in writing this article is to give you a clear look at all the info when comparing Japanese proxy services. Sure, some services might have more shipping options than we do, or offer more ways to pay than we do, but when you take ALL the info all together, we think the choice is clear.

When you combine the great customer service, ZERO service fee, and newly extended free storage period, you can’t go wrong with DEJAPAN! If you have any questions about any of the info presented in this article, please feel free to shoot us an email at contact@dejapan.com or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you!