buying Japanese second hand and Chinese custom-made or mass market.
That’s the future.
To dispel misconceptions, Japanese 2nd hand is a different tier of quality to anywhere else, its not goodwill.
Japanese items have in my experience been extremely accurately described, in great condition for their age, correctly measured/sized etc. I also have had experiences like buying an 80s Comme Des Garcons suit and the man includes a ziploc of fabric spares and buttons.
Websites to use:
I have had good experience with
https://www.fromjapan.co.jp
https://buyee.jp/
https://zenmarket.jp/ (they can take direct ETH deposits)
I find fromjapan’s search better as it lets your browse every site they proxy for at the same time, and also their consolidation rates/service (opening and condensing your packages into one) to be superior.
How to Search:
The easiest way to just get a look at what avaliable on fromjapan is this option, its just pre-defined search terms for a few popular designers and gives you categories like Yohji -> Mens -> Coats.
Further than that, most search terms work as a lot of listing include english and also fromjapan will translate some terms.
as an example:
セットアップ (set up) as a search term will return more results than “suit”
phonetic search terms are hand in a few cases like “wise yohji” vs “y’s yohji” returns a few thousand extra items that are maybe not included in the latter search.
Item quirks and making good purchases:
Legitmacy of items isnt a huge problem on Japanese sites BUT you should still be wary of things that seem to good to be true.
Knowing your items:
Knowing even a few materials or names in Japanese can help your search a lot when the auto-translate fails.
For example:
ポリエステル = Polyester
毛 = Wool (often is auto-translated to hair,fur)
キュプラ = Cupra
裏地= Lining
So this suit is a Wool/Polyester blend with a Cupra lining. often you wont need this but it can be handy to dechipher tags on an auction with a lacklustre description.
You can also upload images to ocr translation sites like https://translate.yandex.com/ocr
to get tags translations and the like for items with less helpful descriptions.
Buying:
Buying works in this way,
Purchase (buy now or auction win) -> payment of charge 1 (auction price plus domestic shipping) -> ships to japan warehouse & is held for up to 40 days while other orders arrive -> you choose when to consolidate, ship to you and pay Charge 2 (International shipping, Plan Fees)
its cheaper to do bigger orders, research the import taxes etc in your state and try to fly just below them. If you’re not sure what extra to add, buy your girl/man a Yohji or two, its remarkably cheap.
very useful thank you
thank u sonora!!