Japan to Door: An Expensive Self-Serve Option for Japanese C.O.D. Orders

A few months ago, I discovered a service called to Japan to Door that promised to provide a self-service mail forwarding service that would allow you to order items even from Japanese stores that did not accept credit cards and instead required C.O.D. (Cash On Delivery or Daibiki 代引き).  To test this service (partly for my own benefit, but also to write this review), I ordered some C81 goods from Toys Planning and decided to follow the process.  I’ve outlined my findings below, but I gave away my conclusion in the title: it works, but it’s not cheap.  In most cases, you’re probably better off using a regular proxy service.

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How it works

I will assume as a starting point that you are already familiar with the procedure to make online orders that are forwarded through Tenso.  If not, please read that link first before continuing, as many of the concepts are similar.

The principle of Japan to Door’s “Other Forwarding Service” is essentially the same as Tenso: you make the order at a Japanese website, and have it sent to a customized address they provide for you.  But there are three main differences on the procedural side:

1. Japan to Door requires that you complete a form describing the incoming package before they receive it (unlike Tenso where you can just send packages to your address without advanced notice)
2. Japan to Door provides an option to accept C.O.D. or P.O.D. (Postage On Delivery) packages, provided you give them the money in advance.
3. Japan to Door has additional shipping options (including SAL, Air, Surface, and FedEx for business accounts)

When you fill out the aforementioned form (the “Other Forwarding Order Form”), you must provide information about the sender, the number of packages you expect, and a description of the package contents, which will later form the packing slip.  You can list any number of items, but you must indicate which items require C.O.D. or P.O.D. payments.  You also select your desired shipping method at this time, and decide if you need to use some of their other services, like “Urgent Shipping”, “Consolidation”, and “Repacking”, each for additional fees.  (If you order multiple packages at once from the same shipper, you must pay for the Consolidation service, which just takes the little boxes and puts them in a bigger box for International Shipping.  You can optionally additionally pay for the Repackaging service to have them open each individual box and consolidate the whole thing into one single box.  Each of these services cost $8 USD each.)

Once you’ve completed the order form, the total amount that you need to provide to cover the C.O.D./P.O.D. and other service fees will be calculated.  After a short while, you should receive a request to pay the balance owing.  Payment is done by transferring funds (in USD) into their system through either PayPal or Bank Transfer.  You then use the funds in the system to pay the requested fee.

Once payment has been received, you simply wait for them to receive your package(s).  Once all your items are received, you will be notified by E-mail, and the package will move to their Shipping process.  After about a business day, you receive an E-mail with notice that payment is due, and again use your Funds to pay for the shipping invoice.  Shortly thereafter, your shipment is sent.

All of the above should sound pretty straightforward if you’re already used to Tenso, with the additional step of completing the form and deciding some services in advance.  I don’t see why you would want to use this for regular package forwarding, but for C.O.D. orders I think it makes a fair bit of sense from a procedural point of view.

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The Catch: Fees

On Japan to Door’s promotional page, they advertise “Our rate are [sic] THE LOWEST IN THE MARKET!  We have… NO HIDDEN CHARGES — What you see is what you get !”  Let me just be charitable and say that this is not exactly true.  The fee structure with Japan to Door is extremely convoluted and is designed at each opportunity to extract money from the customer by every means possible.

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Catch #1: Everything’s in USD — at an exchange rate we set in advance.

For people with USD bank accounts and credit cards, the idea of paying for things directly in USD may seem appealing at first glance, as it allows you to avoid pesky currency exchange fees imposed by your bank, and to have a real handle on the price you’re going to pay.  However, just like currency exchange booths at tourist destinations, this principle is only beneficial to you if you can trust that the exchange rate they quote is fair.  In my entire time using Japan to Door over the last two months, the quote exchange rate has remained unchanged at 1 USD = 73.22 JPY, which is about 2.5 cents lower than the lowest rate ever actually traded on the market in the last 12 months.  As of this writing, the exchange rate is closer to 81.23, which means you are paying almost an 11% premium on every transaction right off the top.

Keep in mind that, if you are not using a USD credit card or bank account, you will still incur a currency exchange premium/fee to convert to USD from your local currency, which could add another ~3% to the price.

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Catch #2: You need to pay us money to give us money (and pay us again to get it back)

When you transfer money in and out of Japan to Door’s “My Funds” account, you are having them hold money for you until you designate how it should be spent.  (In the meantime, they can earn interest on your money or do whatever they want with it, in theory; they’re holding it in trust.)  But for the privilege of giving them your money, you are required to pay a premium of 5% for PayPal payments, or $12 USD per bank transfer.  (If you pay by bank transfer, keep in mind that your bank or any intermediary banks may also withhold their own fees, which will reduce the amount of the transfer.)  In addition, if you want to get the money back (say you overpaid, or change your mind), you have to pay similar fees again for them to transfer the money back out to you.

Now, it’s clear that all financial transactions incur fees, and perhaps it’s not entirely unreasonable for them to pass those fees onto their customers.  But when they are already gaining 10%+ on currency exchange, and when they get to hold your money in the meantime, this additional fee adds insult to injury.

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Catch #3: Pay us for the privilege of spending money on your behalf

The C.O.D./P.O.D. service is very useful, and sets Japan to Door apart from many other “self-serve” package forwarding services.  However, in exchange for providing this service, they charge you a fee that amounts to 15% of the amount paid via C.O.D./P.O.D.  Now again, in theory this is a fee for service rendered and wouldn’t necessarily be unfair, but…

a) why is it a percentage of the price paid; does it really take more effort to pay a larger amount than a smaller one?

b) why is this fee 15% of the amount owing, when you’ve already paid the exchange rate premium, and the “transfer in” fee, and they already have your money sitting there ready to spent (and set aside for this purpose)?

This fee is basically “just because they can”.  They figure that people who are buying more expensive goods will be willing to pay a proportionally higher fee because, hey, they’re rich.

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Catch #4: Pay us for the service of printing a commercial invoice — when you already did all the work

Once an item goes to the shipping process, Japan to Door will undertake the step of printing the necessary documentation to go with your shipment including the Commercial Invoice (that is inspected by customs when the product enters into the country).  Again, this is a service that is a required aspect of shipping any package,  and they are already charging your a handling fee that is based on the weight of your package (similar to what Tenso would charge, for example).  You already provided all the required details for the invoice when you completed the “Other Forwarding Order Form” as well.  Surely it can’t cost $10 USD just to tell the computer to print…?

(And by the way, I’m not sure yet, but even though I told them exactly what to put on the invoice, it looks like they changed it anyway to put lower Retail Values and mark things as “Gift”, even though you should generally not do this.   And they said that EMS shipping cost 3,900 Yen; that is not a valid rate for any weight in any zone.  We’ll see what happens…)

Update [2012-03-13]: I received my package without trouble, but they did indeed lower the declared value (contrary to what I wrote), and in one case they even changed the label.  They also repackaged my order into new boxes even though I didn’t pay for the repacking service, and it was actually split into two boxes which explains the unusual price.  But, all that said, I did receive the items promptly, and didn’t have to pay any duty, so all’s well that ends well I suppose.  Still, changing the value and item type on the declaration is risky and could end badly depending on how uptight your customs agent is, so it’s a risk I wouldn’t normally want to take.  Probably worth taking that into consideration.

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Catch #5: Pay us more upfront to save more later (maybe)!

I hesitate to even add insult to injury here, but Japan to Door offers a quarterly/annual membership service.  The benefit of said service is that, in exchange for paying them a big amount of money upfront, you pay slightly less fees on each transaction.  This does not seem to apply to their Other Package Forwarding Service at this point.  Membership costs $45 USD per quarter or $165 USD per year for “Premier Members”, or $90 USD per quarter or $330 USD per year for “Business Members”.  In exchange for these generous fees, Japan To Door charge a slightly-smaller percentage on items bought or sold through their site’s Personal Shopper, Bidding, and Selling services.  Instead of base fee + 15% of the purchase/sale price, it’s base fee + 10% or 8% respectively.  (You also can’t use the Selling Service unless you’re a member.)  But this does not take into account any of the fees outlined above: the exorbitant exchange rate, the money transfer fees, the C.O.D./P.O.D. handling fees, the package handling fees, or the commercial invoice fee.  It could still save you money if you were a heavy user of the service, but it may not provide as much savings as you expect.

A Practical Example

I figured that I’d provide my own order details as a practical example to illustrate the fee structure.

Of interest’s sake, if I convert the “true costs” (just purchase + shipping = 21750 Yen) at today’s exchange rate, I get $267. 74 USD.  So you could say that, all things considered, I’ve paid $118.45 USD in various forms of fees, which is approximately 44% of the purchase price.  Because of the fee structure, this percentage is likely to remain relatively constant for any order that requires C.O.D.

Keep in mind that I am quoting all this in USD, even though I didn’t actually pay in USD, so I incurred an additional ~2.5% currency exchange fee due to my credit card.

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Conclusion

As much as I whined about all the fees incurred along the way and the way they’re determined (the exchange rate I find particularly egregious given its significant rise over the last few months), what it ultimately comes down to is that you can expect to pay as much as a 50% premium in order to use this service to order C.O.D. items directly.  The question is whether that sort of rate is worth it for you, in exchange for a self-serve environment.

The alternative to this service is, of course, a proxy service (which Japan to Door is also).  At their simplest level (something like Masato), you can just E-mail them to provide a list of the items you want to buy; they will come back with a price (including whatever fees they need to collect), and then simply take care of the rest.  My experience is actually that this can be cheaper than Japan to Door, in addition to there being a lot less work on your end.  (In this example case, I estimate that my fees would have been approximately half if I had asked Masato to order these items for me.)  Given that’s the case, why would you want to use this style of proxy service?  I guess the only reason I can think of would be privacy, and/or if you really don’t like dealing with people directly for whatever it is you want to order.  I suppose that could happen for certain people from time to time, but I’m not sure if it’s worth double the fees.  But, with this information in hand, the choice is yours.

If you have any questions about my experience, I’d be glad to share whatever I can!