- Oct 29, 2013
- 42
- 17
Hey there!
First of all: I posted this in the general section because I could not find a section that seemed more fitting. If I overlooked something, then please move the thread to the according section and excuse me, admin-sama.
So back to the actual topic: Recently I've been shopping for some DVDs and mangas again and was annoyed by the insanely high costs of transport/import taxes and restrictions of nations available for delivery etc.As Japan has a rather high price level goods tend to be a lot more expensive for us non-Japanese than they are for inlanders as their income level is also based on the living expenses there. So naturally when you import those items into your country you might end up paying a ridiculous amount of money for a good that should be -if you talk in terms of inland prices-comparatively- cheap/fair-priced.
Let's take the example of DVDs. In Germany you pay like ~5 to 30 € for a DVD depending on the movie, its' version etc. In Japan however you're well off to a 2.000 to 10.000 ￥ which converts to something like 15 to 70 €. Now there are those who might say "Why not buy it in your own country then?!"..Well, that's one question that's easy to answer: The stuff is not available here.
I've already had a case, where I wanted to buy a manga (Death Edge) which has not been translated to English,Spanish, French or German. So as I was not able to buy it as an eBook version back then without a credit card, I tried to get the Italian version (which I could at least try to decipher using google translate and my knowledge of French and Spanish). Any shop I was able to decipher the shopping sites of which mostly was stuff like Amazon etc would charge insane prices for delivery(of course they always used the most expensive: DHL) and again most often only delivered nationally. In the end it would have been cheaper and faster to buy a plane ticket, fly to Italy, buy the manga there and fly back. Insane isn't it? Or there's some makeup I totally love but the brand won't export because they have a contract for only some countries and the exclusive selling rights belong to some sort of spa that only sells a small part of the overall variety that there actually could be.
So recently I've been confronted with this issue several times either personally or being told about it by friends who had the same problem. When looking into the issue more, I found out that proxy delivery services are nearly non-existent and/or most often so expensive you can't afford it. So I was wondering if there was something like a community of individuals that would offer this service like a "service by fans for fans" for free on a free-will-basis or something like that. If there isn't wouldn't it be possible to create one of our own?
Of course there had to be rules like for example the person who wants to buy a product has to pay the money for the good before the proxy buys it in case it's something that can only be bought in a store or only through a national bank etc thus making the purchase from the buyer through the internet impossible. Furthermore both parties should be required to send the other one a copy of their identity card/passport as to reduce the risk of pranking etc.Of course there could be no real warranties but if based on a community-forum you could offer experiences of former users. I'm aware that it's a somewhat risky thing but I'm also sure there are many people who want something and cannot access it right now because there either is no "commercial" proxy service or import laws make it impossible [Example: 1) the country requires the sort of product thus for a DVD the movie-genre to be listed on the package-outside and forbids the import of yaoi/yuri/eroge/splatter/....movies, thus requiring someone to write a different title on the outside or package the actual DVD in another outer case or 2) the price of the product being taxed so ridiculously that it makes it totally unlikely to ever buy. Talking about price levels is the itchy part again It depends strongly in which country you want to buy what.As for Japanese goods that are- compared to the standards of other nations products- really expensive: You already have to pay the high Japanese price and taxes and then for example another 40% import tax for your own country etc which could easily result in one DVD costing you 200€ which (-let's be honest- would make you rethink your initial plan of supporting the company/artist/author/.. and get an illegal copy online or w/e ) So declaring the product with a lower value to reduce the import tax a bit but one that actually matches the inland price level making it more affordable would increase purchases].
Is there something like that? What do you think about the idea itself?
I think it would be a huge improvement and help the ones who actually really want to buy instead of for example only download for free a lot. Also it would enable people to use cheaper delivery options if the online shop for example would always send with DHL package but a movie could also be sent using a big envelope and slow land transportation. I've been using SAL a lot because over time you save so much money that even if one of your packages would get lost you'd still be better off than if you had used DHL/ EMS everytime and payed 20€ more per delivery.So even the "added risk" of trusting a private person with your money or your product would still be calculatedly low. Also it's not like you couldn't "get to know" the person. For example if it was here as a sub-forum group you could always stalk their past posts and get an impression for what kind of person they are while you might not trust someone who only registered on the same day and has no comments at all.
I personally would not feel burdened if from time to time I would receive a package for someone else and forwarded it to another address..I guess everyone's already done that to some extent but then this gets harder if you are talking about an international ground because you normally don't know someone from each country around the world who could forward a package for you. And as it would be a free-will-service no one would have to participate if he was bothered by it or could only do 1 package every 3 months or something. Well this is my personal opinion. Now I'm curious about yours.:3
First of all: I posted this in the general section because I could not find a section that seemed more fitting. If I overlooked something, then please move the thread to the according section and excuse me, admin-sama.
So back to the actual topic: Recently I've been shopping for some DVDs and mangas again and was annoyed by the insanely high costs of transport/import taxes and restrictions of nations available for delivery etc.As Japan has a rather high price level goods tend to be a lot more expensive for us non-Japanese than they are for inlanders as their income level is also based on the living expenses there. So naturally when you import those items into your country you might end up paying a ridiculous amount of money for a good that should be -if you talk in terms of inland prices-comparatively- cheap/fair-priced.
Let's take the example of DVDs. In Germany you pay like ~5 to 30 € for a DVD depending on the movie, its' version etc. In Japan however you're well off to a 2.000 to 10.000 ￥ which converts to something like 15 to 70 €. Now there are those who might say "Why not buy it in your own country then?!"..Well, that's one question that's easy to answer: The stuff is not available here.
I've already had a case, where I wanted to buy a manga (Death Edge) which has not been translated to English,Spanish, French or German. So as I was not able to buy it as an eBook version back then without a credit card, I tried to get the Italian version (which I could at least try to decipher using google translate and my knowledge of French and Spanish). Any shop I was able to decipher the shopping sites of which mostly was stuff like Amazon etc would charge insane prices for delivery(of course they always used the most expensive: DHL) and again most often only delivered nationally. In the end it would have been cheaper and faster to buy a plane ticket, fly to Italy, buy the manga there and fly back. Insane isn't it? Or there's some makeup I totally love but the brand won't export because they have a contract for only some countries and the exclusive selling rights belong to some sort of spa that only sells a small part of the overall variety that there actually could be.
So recently I've been confronted with this issue several times either personally or being told about it by friends who had the same problem. When looking into the issue more, I found out that proxy delivery services are nearly non-existent and/or most often so expensive you can't afford it. So I was wondering if there was something like a community of individuals that would offer this service like a "service by fans for fans" for free on a free-will-basis or something like that. If there isn't wouldn't it be possible to create one of our own?
Of course there had to be rules like for example the person who wants to buy a product has to pay the money for the good before the proxy buys it in case it's something that can only be bought in a store or only through a national bank etc thus making the purchase from the buyer through the internet impossible. Furthermore both parties should be required to send the other one a copy of their identity card/passport as to reduce the risk of pranking etc.Of course there could be no real warranties but if based on a community-forum you could offer experiences of former users. I'm aware that it's a somewhat risky thing but I'm also sure there are many people who want something and cannot access it right now because there either is no "commercial" proxy service or import laws make it impossible [Example: 1) the country requires the sort of product thus for a DVD the movie-genre to be listed on the package-outside and forbids the import of yaoi/yuri/eroge/splatter/....movies, thus requiring someone to write a different title on the outside or package the actual DVD in another outer case or 2) the price of the product being taxed so ridiculously that it makes it totally unlikely to ever buy. Talking about price levels is the itchy part again It depends strongly in which country you want to buy what.As for Japanese goods that are- compared to the standards of other nations products- really expensive: You already have to pay the high Japanese price and taxes and then for example another 40% import tax for your own country etc which could easily result in one DVD costing you 200€ which (-let's be honest- would make you rethink your initial plan of supporting the company/artist/author/.. and get an illegal copy online or w/e ) So declaring the product with a lower value to reduce the import tax a bit but one that actually matches the inland price level making it more affordable would increase purchases].
Is there something like that? What do you think about the idea itself?
I think it would be a huge improvement and help the ones who actually really want to buy instead of for example only download for free a lot. Also it would enable people to use cheaper delivery options if the online shop for example would always send with DHL package but a movie could also be sent using a big envelope and slow land transportation. I've been using SAL a lot because over time you save so much money that even if one of your packages would get lost you'd still be better off than if you had used DHL/ EMS everytime and payed 20€ more per delivery.So even the "added risk" of trusting a private person with your money or your product would still be calculatedly low. Also it's not like you couldn't "get to know" the person. For example if it was here as a sub-forum group you could always stalk their past posts and get an impression for what kind of person they are while you might not trust someone who only registered on the same day and has no comments at all.
I personally would not feel burdened if from time to time I would receive a package for someone else and forwarded it to another address..I guess everyone's already done that to some extent but then this gets harder if you are talking about an international ground because you normally don't know someone from each country around the world who could forward a package for you. And as it would be a free-will-service no one would have to participate if he was bothered by it or could only do 1 package every 3 months or something. Well this is my personal opinion. Now I'm curious about yours.:3
