Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

A place where you can chat about anything that isn't to do with games!

How often do you purchase from YaMamaTalksToU?

Never have, and I never will.
3
8%
Never have, but I might consider it in the future if there's something I need.
3
8%
Rarely.
4
10%
Occasionally/sometimes.
4
10%
Often.
2
5%
What. In. The. Flamin'. Heck. Is a YaMamaTalksToU?
23
59%
 
Total votes: 39

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layzee
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Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

YaMamaTalksToU is of particular interest to me. They are undoubtedly the largest Japanese game seller on eBay for years, more than a decade probably. They are the most reliable source of selling games you may be interested in, whoever you are, and on top of that, while you're there, you might as well buy some other items you're not so interested in. Due to the sheer volume of stuff they sell, there's bound to be at least a few low-priority items you can get just for fun. There can be as many as 1,000+ items ending each day with rarely a day where auctions aren't ending - I'd say on average there is/are one or two days a week where auctions aren't ending. If you're a thorough checker like me, it's a much needed break.

Some random thoughts follow:

I think for the majority of the time they have existed, their auction durations were 7 days. I guess they thought they weren't selling quickly enough so they changed it to 3 days. I guess they thought that wasn't enough time to draw bidder attention and bids, so they changed it to the current 5 days.

As others have noted in previous posts, shipping for single items used to be a perfectly reasonable $7 or $8 but in 2014 or 2015, this was bumped up to $14. It is unfortunate but it's obviously so that they can attempt to slow down the non-receipt claims. The extra shipping price is to upgrade from standard Economy SAL to SAL with tracking number. As a business, they can ship without tracking and eat the customer refunds or they can ship with tracking and have proof of shipping/delivery at the cost of possible fewer bids/lower prices. For us honest folks, this hurt a bit. A nice compromise could be the option of no tracking number for us first-worlders (USA, UK, Australia etc) and compulsory tracking for the shit countries (no offence, lol). YaMamaTalksToU practically lists them on the auction description: Brazil, Russia, any and all South American nations.

When the new shipping prices kicked in, I was predicting an overall slight drop in prices in the lower to medium-priced games. What sort of surprised me was that it seemed like the opposite happened: prices went up regardless of the shipping price increases. I don't have any data/facts/figures to support my assertion, it's just my gut feeling.

Though I prefer otherwise, we can arguably accept that parcel tracking is the new YaMamaTalksToU reality. What IS unreasonable is the now blatant over-charging on shipping. The auction descriptions state that you can combine items and save on shipping. While technically true, it's still a bit of a misnomer. Yeah, the items will be combined but you're still going to be overcharged every step of the way. Buy three Sega Mega Drive games and shipping is already close to $30 USD. Buy more than a few games and shipping is $100+ when the actual cost is more likely $50. At larger quantities, there is barely a difference between all three shipping method prices: SAL, Air Mail, EMS. Also, the parcels used to have the shipping price (in yen) stamped onto it, but not anymore so there is a loss of transparency in that regard. Furthermore, YaMamaTalksToU, as a large and very high-volume seller, would no doubt get business shipping discounts of some extent so that's even more in their pockets.

Then there's the barcode stickers. More often than not, peeling off the stickers from older cardboard boxes (Super Famicom, etc) results in a little bit of the box art peeling off too. But it's even worse now. They seem to be using newer stickers that still looks mostly the same but the adhesiveness has a 50% chance of being similar in strength to the old ones and 50% chance of being a pain-in-the-ass to peel off. If you want to have a chance of safely peeling it off, then you need to do it slowly (20 seconds per sticker) to miminise damage to the box art and to miminise sticker residue (i.e. the sticker itself or the stickiness feeling). As a seller mostly dealing in retro games, this must be some massive oversight. At least they always package the items well though.

Their describing of item condition is getting somewhat more sloppy. Most of the time it is reasonably accurate, but an uncomfortable amount is not ("Like new" discs that have a bit too many scratches).

Communication is above average. Sometimes replies are within hours, mostly within 24-48 hours. Issues (and refunds if applicable) are responded to in a reasonable and timely manner.

Those are my general thoughts but despite the myriad paragraphs, that's not even why I posted. So over the years, I've read complaints about YaMamaTalksToU and grumblings about expensive "combined" shipping (true) and shill-bidding (need more info to make judgement). But I have occasionally noticed items that get listed, get bid on, then get re-listed one month later (the relist seems pretty automatic, it's almost always like 30 days later), presumably because it was unpaid whether by shill-bidders or deadbeat buyers. Due to eBay hiding bidder usernames in 201x or 20xx, it is hard to tell for sure who is responsible. But by checking bid histories, I have definitely noticed there are those who exclusively (or mainly) bid on YaMamaTalksToU items AND have bid retractions in the hundreds.

So today, I'm here on the SHMUP forums (which I rarely visit) and I thought I'd click on some random threads, and I ended up on the "insane prices" thread. Some whining about YaMamaTalksToU. I click a few pages back to a Mar 13, 2016 post with a Sol Divide (Sega Saturn) eBay link. I click the link. I don't even care about SHMUPs (why am I even registered here?).

Here's the link again: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sol-Divide-Sega ... 1562798490

Oh, it's a YaMamaTalksToU auction.
Ending date: Mar 13, 2016.
Winning bid: US $1000.91
Sold to buyer: f***g
I'm no SHMUP expert but based on my 5 second research, this $1,000 sealed copy of Sol Divide is overpriced. I wouldn't pay that much, even if it's my favourite game in the world. But hey, if f-triple-asterisk-g wants it that badly, more power to him/her.

"I wonder if..."

Just for fun, I checked YaMamaTalksToU's past listings for the same game. And here are the results:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sol-Divide-Sega ... 1831814315
Ending date: Apr 19, 2016
Winning bid: US $70.91
Sold to buyer: f***g

Oh hang on, he bought the same game again!
Oh hang on, it's LITERALLY the same (sealed) game again (same photos)!
Note the ending date of this auction and the previous one. The difference is 30 days + 5 day auction duration.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sol-Divide-Sega ... 1645603862
Ending date: Jul 03, 2016
Winning bid: US $152.50
Sold to buyer: f***g

Again, same game. Same photo. Same "buyer". This time it seems like the difference between this third auction and the second is 2 months + 5 day duration. A possible 4th Sol Divide auction missing perhaps?

Two possible explanations: f***g is a serial deadbeat buyer and YaMamaTalksToU doesn't have their general blocks in place (if any) or a direct bidder block. I do know that YaMamaTalksToU can choose to block someone from bidding if buyer comments from their negative feedback is of any indication. Or f***g is a shill bidder.

Anywho, for those who have a greater stake in this than I do, you may be advised to save those links (as in the actual contents, not just the URL) before they disappear. The first two links don't even show up under eBay completed items anymore. I don't even remember how I got the second link.

The whole topic aside, at the end of the day, one should only bid the max they are willing to pay and no higher than that. Don't expect eBay to do anything. A set of rules for some, another set for others. e.g. Chinese sellers who misrepresent their item location and change it to your country, which is a clear policy violation but nothing is done.

PS. Just for posterity, here is a link to YaMamaTalksToU's long forgotten and abandoned message board.
Last edited by layzee on Fri Nov 03, 2017 1:01 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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layzee
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

Just checking if I can edit the first post after making this second post.

Edit: Yep.
hien
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by hien »

Well, you're only at risk of falling for nonsense bids like this, if you're incable of using basic ebay functions (the "sold listings" checkbox in this case to check for current prices).

Yamatoku has become pretty useless anway though for exactly the reasons you stated. They're worthless now for cheap games thanks to stupid expensive shipping costs which even get worse when combining stuff. And the more expensive games are also better bought elsewehre (if at all nowadays…) since Yamatoku is probably one of the most frequented retro sellers on ebay. Which means that you got an above average potential for resellers, clueless idiots with too much money and deadbeat bidders. Which the retro market seems to consist mainly of these days. It's not seldom the case, that their auctions end higher than certain instant-buy offers, so why even bother?

Oh and if you want to have a good laugh, just look at their trade in prices at their own page. Don't know if it's really up to date though.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by CIT »

Haven't used Yamatoku for years, for exactly the reasons described here.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Skykid »

YaMamaTalksToU
What the fuck?
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nem
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by nem »

I used to buys tons of shit from http://www.yamatoku.jp/game

Little did I know everything there was stuff they didn't sell on eBay :oops:

Nonetheless I managed to get a lot of good deals there. The last one was in 2009, a boxed Sega Virtua Stick for $45 including shipping.

Good times.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I bought a Fzero SFC boxed for like $12 recently.

can't complain.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

Certainly, it's still possible to score a few below market value deals though those are increasingly becoming far and few in between. Though this trend applies more to eBay in general really.

Yes, I remember they used to sell stuff on their own website (many years ago) but if memory serves, none of the items and prices were compelling. Might as well chuck it on eBay itself and get rid of it which is exactly what they did, and the online store was abandoned.

Also a couple of things I forgot to mention in the main post. The barcode stickers. More often than not, peeling off the stickers from older cardboard boxes (Super Famicom, etc) results in a little bit of the box art peeling off too. But it's even worse now. They seem to be using newer stickers that still looks mostly the same but the adhesiveness has a 50% chance of being similar in strength to the old ones and 50% chance of being a pain-in-the-ass to peel off. If you want to have a chance of safely peeling it off, then you need to do it slowly (20 seconds per sticker) to miminise damage to the box art and to miminise sticker residue (i.e. the sticker itself or the stickiness feeling). As a seller mostly dealing in retro games, this must be some massive oversight. At least they always package the items well though.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by 16bitpilot »

Seen and heard a lot about them up bidding their own stuff to drive the prices up, a quick Google fetches up many topics on the subject. I now avoid them.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Bitter Almonds »

I have no idea what this is about. I rarely pay more than retail for anything, though, so it's rare that I get gypped by anyone on EBay.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Skykid »

16bitpilot wrote:Seen and heard a lot about them up bidding their own stuff to drive the prices up, a quick Google fetches up many topics on the subject. I now avoid them.
Can completely believe it. I'm sure this has been practiced by many eBay outfits over the years, resulting in the massively inflated market we have today. No doubt about it, we didn't arrive here organically: there's been a huge and deliberate manufacture of value.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by system11 »

I'm assuming they used to be called Yamatoku. I used to use them way back and they were ok if you didn't mind average condition games. However, any companies that stick things on games is an instant fail for me, didn't know they were now barcoding things.
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16bitpilot
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by 16bitpilot »

Skykid wrote:
16bitpilot wrote:Seen and heard a lot about them up bidding their own stuff to drive the prices up, a quick Google fetches up many topics on the subject. I now avoid them.
Can completely believe it. I'm sure this has been practiced by many eBay outfits over the years, resulting in the massively inflated market we have today. No doubt about it, we didn't arrive here organically: there's been a huge and deliberate manufacture of value.
I found a thread somewhere which proved it, when you looked into the bidders profile you could see that 100% of their bids were placed on yamatoku items, and the phoney accounts had little or no feedback.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by BrianC »

This is just sad. Yamatoku was one of the first ebay sellers I imported from, but they aren't the same as they used to be.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Three Rockman Sound Boxes went for $200 USD each. These idiots could have bought them each for at least $50 USD cheaper from other sellers. Assuming they weren't deadbeat buyers which they are. I'll bet y'all $10 these auctions will be relisted one month from now.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Xer Xian »

What are you gonna do. It's not limited to Yamatoku - clueless, frothing collectors are jacking up the price of retro-stuff all over the world.

About Yamatoku - they're far from perfect, but I still buy from them (among other sellers). While there's almost zero chance to get a decent deal on sought-after stuff, it's ok for less coveted items, especially if you buy a lot and have it shipped by surface (yeah, it's super-slow).

I've noticed there's an odd listing that closes at 10-20x of the market value every once in a while (like the sealed copy of Sol Divide mentioned in the OP, or a regular slim PS2 closing at about $1000 recently), and they do shill bid occasionally. Who cares - just use a sniping app and do not offer above market-value. Never get too attached to specific items and start a bidding war with some idiot. Chances are they'll re-list that same item some other time.
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layzee
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

layzee wrote:Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Three Rockman Sound Boxes went for $200 USD each. These idiots could have bought them each for at least $50 USD cheaper from other sellers. Assuming they weren't deadbeat buyers which they are. I'll bet y'all $10 these auctions will be relisted one month from now.
Seems like these auctions run at 2 week cycles now, not monthly, so I lost the bet. Anyway, as predicted, two of the Rockman Sound Boxes were relisted and ended at a more reasonable price. Sucks to be the sucker who bought (and presumably paid for) the third one at the inflated price, thanks for the deadbeat bidder.

However, a new (well, old) wrench has been thrown into the works. While the soundtracks are at a reasonable price, the winning bidder of them is anything but. This bidder, whose username I constantly see, bids on lots of the seller's listings. At the moment, ~1000 items out of ~4000 or one quarter. They don't seem to always pay for the items they bid on so I would expect the Rockman Sound Boxes to be relisted for a THIRD time (a 50% to 75% chance this might happen).

More proof of the shadiness of this bidder:
Final Fantasy IX Soundtrack: They win the item for $15.01 and then one month later, then win the same item for $13. Third time lucky in December perhaps?

Final Fantasy VII Soundtrack: They win the item for $24.50 and one month later, they are the second highest bidder with a bid of $25.

Another Final Fantasy IX Soundtrack: Here they fail to win the auction the first time and fail again the second time. Even hundreds of feedback winning bidders aren't immune from being a deadbeat.
Xer Xian wrote:What are you gonna do.
Not much I can do except bid without emotion and record my observations (with emotion). I can't stay silent on all this annoyance.
Xer Xian wrote:I've noticed there's an odd listing that closes at 10-20x of the market value every once in a while (like the sealed copy of Sol Divide mentioned in the OP, or a regular slim PS2 closing at about $1000 recently)
Found your PS2 (10 days later, relisted and sold for a mere $10). Let's analyse the winning bidder and second highest bidder of the first listing.

Winning bidder
Items bid on: ~1000 (similar stat to the soundtrack bidder above)
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 100% (high chance of shilling)

2nd highest bidder
Bid retractions: 36
Bid retractions (6 months): 221 (maybe not a shill bidder, just an extreme deadbeat one)

That reminds me of the sealed PS1 memory cards that went for $200. One month before, that same item was "sold" for $20 (unpaid and then relisted obviously like so many other things). Sucks to be the sucker (again).

Also, I'm surprised those Sol Divide links from 2016 still work. eBay listings that only ended a few months ago usually get wiped from the system.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

The above Rockman Sound Boxes have been relisted as many as four times due to either deadbeat bidders or shilling (with the final bidding price going down each time). Just goes to show how much fraudulent bidding activity there is. According to some of the negative feedback in the past, the seller does have the capability to block bidders. They just seem to be selective on which bidders they block. e.g. They may block buyers who complain too much about shipping costs, but they don't seem to block some of the 1000+ item bidders who drive the prices up and never seem to pay (as evidenced by the relistings).

Anyway, that's old news and not why I'm here today.

In new news, everything they are selling are now exclusively non-auction (i.e. fixed price) listings. I thought it was just maybe a temporary oversight but nope, not a single auction in sight. Is this the beginning of the end?
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Xer Xian »

layzee wrote:In new news, everything they are selling are now exclusively non-auction (i.e. fixed price) listings. I thought it was just maybe a temporary oversight but nope, not a single auction in sight. Is this the beginning of the end?
As long as he keeps prices in line with what used to be the average going rate (which seems to be the case right now), wouldn't you agree that the shift to BIN listings is for the better? No more nonsense biddings, shilling, relying on automatic bidding apps etc etc.

What is not for the better, is how they started declaring the full items' value around Sep/Oct last year. Having to pay VAT+import taxes on top of ever growing prices was kind of a deal breaker for me (over here that crap is imposed on anything above ~30EUR).
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

Xer Xian wrote:As long as he keeps prices in line with what used to be the average going rate (which seems to be the case right now), wouldn't you agree that the shift to BIN listings is for the better? No more nonsense biddings, shilling, relying on automatic bidding apps etc etc.
It's both for the better and for the worse. It's for the better for the reasons you've listed. But it's also for the worse because now that the items are "market price" there's no longer any opportunity for bargains (and rip offs). While it seems like 90% of sellers are opting for fixed price listings, I consider their insistence of listing $1 auctions as their comparative advantage. The evidence of this advantage (from the seller's point of view) is that they reliably sell 99% of their items at more-or-less market price, even the near-worthless items. As I mentioned in the first paragraph in my first post, why not grab a few cheap stuff too to your order? (from the buyer's point of view). A lesser/smaller Japanese games seller would have trouble clearing most of their $1 auctions, let alone at market price.

But now that they deal in 100% fixed price listings, they look like any other store. I guess that's just a sign of the eBay times in general and the direction eBay is going. i.e. eBay stopped being an auction site a long time ago - now they're just an Amazon-wannabe.

In any case, it will be interesting to see whether fixed price listings works out for them or not. Who knows, they might return to auctions in the future. For now however, this (might be) the beginning of the end, for me at least.
Xer Xian wrote:What is not for the better, is how they started declaring the full items' value around Sep/Oct last year. Having to pay VAT+import taxes on top of ever growing prices was kind of a deal breaker for me (over here that crap is imposed on anything above ~30EUR).
I do vaguely recall getting big boxes of stuff from them with a declared $10 or something value. Fun times. In any case, customs/import taxes can certainly hurt. I feel sorry for the citizens of countries that have high import taxes and/or low item value thresholds before the tax applies. But I guess the seller was getting tired of non-receipt claims and felt this was a necessary measure (i.e. forced tracking). As usual, the minority ruins it for the rest of us.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Bananamatic »

retro game collecting is the most degenerate act known to man
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

I stopped buying from this seller since the change to fixed price listings but out of habit and for old time's sake, I still check their listings. So starting yesterday, they are now doing a combination of "free" shipping and discounts for multiple purchases. The problem of course is that there's no such thing as a free lunch so the shipping price is now absorbed into the item price. Potentially, you're paying more than necessary even taking into account the discounts. You can get almost 50% off if you buy more than 20 items but I would guess that all of that will be the hidden shipping overcost. Theoretically speaking, if you wanted to have a chance at beating market price then you'd have to buy 20+ expensive items (e.g. Radiant Silvergun, arcade boards, what-have-you) so that the discount actually chips at the item price instead of the hidden shipping component. Don't wait too long for those 20 valuable games though, your order will probably be automatically canceled after two weeks. From the point of view of the seller, "free shipping" has one big advantage: automatic 5 star DSRs and no complaints from buyers about shipping price overcharges.

In general, over the past few months, they seem to be selling a decent amount but they also now have a lot of unsold listings. This is compared to their past auction-only strategy (which was their strategy for what, almost 20 years?) where they had a 99.9% sell rate.

I guess this is an end of an era for the "most popular Japanese game seller on eBay" and a further sign of modern day eBay (i.e. an aspiring Amazon clone). In the case of eBay, their era (the "auction website filled with a variety of odds and ends" AKA "the online garage sale") ended like 5+ years ago or so? I think eBay copying Amazon is a big mistake (we already have an Amazon, we don't need two of them) but I'm just a random Internet dude.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by CFO »

Got countless steals from them when they were using the auction format. I've stopped paying much attention now that they've switched to BIN only. Not many great deals to be had now.

Regarding the stickers, I've peeled probably 50+ off of their SFC and FC games and never damaged. Just go slow and they're fine.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by neorichieb1971 »

Bananamatic wrote:retro game collecting is the most degenerate act known to man
Not if you buy what you like. If your buying things you wouldn't play at all thats a different story. Its like the people that download more music you could listen to in a life time and think thats cool. And then buy even more storage devices to download even more :lol:
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Xer Xian »

layzee wrote:Don't wait too long for those 20 valuable games though, your order will probably be automatically canceled after two weeks.
They've changed their policies a few times - first (starting from around two months ago) they would only allow to withhold payment for up to 7 days, now there's no grace period apparently. They also do not provide a Surface shipping option anymore.

And of course this new bloated prices+free shipping+discount is a complete game changer. I used to get lots of low value items that kind of sweetened the deal, now as you said one is forced to chase high value items and avoid lesser ones. The multiple purchase discount would still get nearly completely erased due to customs though (which are applied around 70-80% of the times in my country). Well, it was nice while it lasted :)
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

layzee wrote:I guess this is an end of an era for the "most popular Japanese game seller on eBay" and a further sign of modern day eBay (i.e. an aspiring Amazon clone). In the case of eBay, their era (the "auction website filled with a variety of odds and ends" AKA "the online garage sale") ended like 5+ years ago or so? I think eBay copying Amazon is a big mistake (we already have an Amazon, we don't need two of them) but I'm just a random Internet dude.
Does it kind of suck? Sure but ultimately it's up to the sellers and they are the ones doing BINs. Hell I always do bins when I sell, it's annoying to screw with auctions. When the items don't sell eBay usually suggests changing to auction format and I ignore them.
CFO wrote:Got countless steals from them when they were using the auction format. I've stopped paying much attention now that they've switched to BIN only. Not many great deals to be had now.
Yep. There are a couple Japanese auction sellers last I looked but options are dwindling. Losing yamatoku was a big blow, even taking into account that they shilled here and there.
Xer Xian wrote:
layzee wrote:Don't wait too long for those 20 valuable games though, your order will probably be automatically canceled after two weeks.
They've changed their policies a few times - first (starting from around two months ago) they would only allow to withhold payment for up to 7 days, now there's no grace period apparently. They also do not provide a Surface shipping option anymore.

And of course this new bloated prices+free shipping+discount is a complete game changer. I used to get lots of low value items that kind of sweetened the deal, now as you said one is forced to chase high value items and avoid lesser ones. The multiple purchase discount would still get nearly completely erased due to customs though (which are applied around 70-80% of the times in my country). Well, it was nice while it lasted :)
Now that's some shit. Especially with the soaring shipping rates. I understand their reasoning (they don't want to get dicked) but that stinks.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by layzee »

CFO wrote:Regarding the stickers, I've peeled probably 50+ off of their SFC and FC games and never damaged. Just go slow and they're fine.
That depends on the condition of the SFC/FC box (shiny and smooth or old and worn out) and whether the part of the box that the sticker is stuck over has creases or not. As you peel the sticker, some bits of the colour of the box will also inevitable come off. Not a big deal for el cheapo SFC games but a bit annoying for expensive ones like Macross or whatever. But yes, for the most, there are no problems with the barcode stickers. Anyway, I don't know if you ordered any of their games back then (late 2016, when I made this thread) but for a short period of time, they used extra sticky stickers (almost impossible to take off, even on Nintendo DS cases) but fortunately they stopped shortly after.
Xer Xian wrote:
layzee wrote:Don't wait too long for those 20 valuable games though, your order will probably be automatically canceled after two weeks.
They've changed their policies a few times - first (starting from around two months ago) they would only allow to withhold payment for up to 7 days, now there's no grace period apparently. They also do not provide a Surface shipping option anymore.
Do you mean you must pay within 7 days otherwise they'll cancel the order? If so, then 7 days isn't much at all for the opportunity to combine shipping, let alone attain a decent enough discount rate.

Actually now that you mention it, their policies have indeed changed several times. I think maybe several years ago, I was able to refrain from paying for the items for as long as one month so that was a good opportunity for combined shipping. Then more recently, this one month deadline got shortened to two weeks + a four or seven day grace period (that's when you get an automated warning email directly from the seller).
Xer Xian wrote:And of course this new bloated prices+free shipping+discount is a complete game changer. I used to get lots of low value items that kind of sweetened the deal, now as you said one is forced to chase high value items and avoid lesser ones. The multiple purchase discount would still get nearly completely erased due to customs though (which are applied around 70-80% of the times in my country). Well, it was nice while it lasted :)
All good things will come to an end it seems. And yes, I think they kind of inadvertently eliminated their own competitive advantage: their "low value" game sweeteners. I can attest to that personally. Normally I wouldn't buy these low value games by themselves but since I had already built up an order, I might as well grab some cheap games while I'm at it. Now due to all these changes, buyers no longer have any incentive to buy their low value games.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:
layzee wrote:I guess this is an end of an era for the "most popular Japanese game seller on eBay" and a further sign of modern day eBay (i.e. an aspiring Amazon clone). In the case of eBay, their era (the "auction website filled with a variety of odds and ends" AKA "the online garage sale") ended like 5+ years ago or so? I think eBay copying Amazon is a big mistake (we already have an Amazon, we don't need two of them) but I'm just a random Internet dude.
Does it kind of suck? Sure but ultimately it's up to the sellers and they are the ones doing BINs. Hell I always do bins when I sell, it's annoying to screw with auctions. When the items don't sell eBay usually suggests changing to auction format and I ignore them.
Yes, sellers are simply adjusting to the realities of the market/venue (i.e. eBay) and I don't blame them. I blame eBay for promoting "free" shipping (no such thing as free shipping) and for abandoning their mum and pop sellers, among myriad things. eBay selling suggestions are of course completely stupid and unrealistic, especially when they suggest you to change to auction format and a starting price of $0.99c. i.e. These days, the starting price IS the ending price.
CFO wrote:Got countless steals from them when they were using the auction format. I've stopped paying much attention now that they've switched to BIN only. Not many great deals to be had now.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:Yep. There are a couple Japanese auction sellers last I looked but options are dwindling. Losing yamatoku was a big blow, even taking into account that they shilled here and there.
My original intention for this thread was to communicate my frustrations regarding suspected shill bidders/bidding and deadbeat bidders. I guess now it's about reminiscing about the good ol' days and observing the current happenings with this particular seller. I've been buying from them (to various degrees) since the mid-2000s and I'm sure some of y'all have been active with them even earlier. The situation back then was the same: they list thousands of auctions at low prices. You bid and hope for the best. Eventually, you end up receiving a big cardboard box of goodies from Japan.

Who else is there these days? I know that hit-japan has always been reliable and has been on the scene as long as yamatoku. Their prices are usually reasonable and they almost always accept offers (provided your offer was fair). My second favourite Japanese game seller was actually "palet_jp" or something like that. Some of you oldies might remember that name. They had a similar strategy: list a bunch of stuff at low prices. They also specialised in visual novels at fixed price, if you like that sort of thing and had their own website (back when eBay allowed you to advertise your own website - yamatoku had one as well). They quit a long time ago though.

Also, anyone else notice the fixed price listings of Japanese games by random Japanese sellers with sky-high prices on eBay that will never be sold at that price? What's the deal with that. To top it off, they don't even take good photos of what they're selling.

Anyway, for nostalgia's sake, I will continue observing yamatoku's happenings.
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Steamflogger Boss
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Yeah eBay really wants sellers to set free shipping too. They always spam me about qualifying for their fast and free bullcrap by setting shipping to free (baking it into the cost in reality) and setting my handling time to one day...
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CFO
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by CFO »

layzee wrote:
CFO wrote:Regarding the stickers, I've peeled probably 50+ off of their SFC and FC games and never damaged. Just go slow and they're fine.
That depends on the condition of the SFC/FC box (shiny and smooth or old and worn out) and whether the part of the box that the sticker is stuck over has creases or not. As you peel the sticker, some bits of the colour of the box will also inevitable come off. Not a big deal for el cheapo SFC games but a bit annoying for expensive ones like Macross or whatever. But yes, for the most, there are no problems with the barcode stickers. Anyway, I don't know if you ordered any of their games back then (late 2016, when I made this thread) but for a short period of time, they used extra sticky stickers (almost impossible to take off, even on Nintendo DS cases) but fortunately they stopped shortly after.
I didn't buy too many poor/worn out condition games so I can't speak on that. On some of the really old FC games there was a greater risk of actually ripping the cardboard completely if you didn't go slow. I was definitely concerned when removing some of them from the more valuable games but I believe I only dealt with the sticker type that were meant to be non-damaging. Looking at the games I got, there was no color removal. Glad I didn't buy any in the late 2016 period.
Last edited by CFO on Thu Apr 26, 2018 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Regarding the most popular Japanese game seller on eBay

Post by Koa Zo »

The 45% off of 20 items was a potentially great deal, I was building up my shopping cart and was poised to get a like-new boxed Felicia Blue PSP for ~$45, a PCE Shuttle controller for ~$20, and a white fat PS2 for ~$45 along with a bunch of games for good prices.
I was thinking people would really take advantage of it, and I bet I was right, yamatoku shut down all their listings again a couple days ago.
Now everything is relisted with slightly higher prices and much lower discounts. 5% off two, 10% off six, 30% off ten.
Clearly they've been trying to find their groove in this changing market. I wonder if eBay Japan made some significant changes to their sellers this past month, as I've noticed another longtime seller "gamedigga" abruptly deleted all their items a couple days ago also.

I thought the yamatoku BIN listings and discounts for 5-20 items had great potential for good deals, but at the new discount structure I'm not seeing any enticing prices.
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