Japanese auction help!!

[cavein2000]

Hello all.  I have been trying to find some rare stuff in japanese auctions.  I found something I was interested in and tried using Otaku-Ya's deputy service.  As the auction was close to ending, He responded that based on his judgement he could not have dealings with me.  Any help here?? Also if you know of a translating/input program to help me search better that would be awesome... thanks

Jay

[CrackTiger]

Hello all.  I have been trying to find some rare stuff in japanese auctions.  I found something I was interested in and tried using Otaku-Ya's deputy service.  As the auction was close to ending, He responded that based on his judgement he could not have dealings with me.  Any help here?? Also if you know of a translating/input program to help me search better that would be awesome... thanks

Jay

Who was it that said that he could not have dealings with you? Otaku-Ya or the auction seller?

[rolins]

For translating japanese use Shopping Mall Japan.

Also try using Google's language tools to translate english -> japanese. Its better to search using japanese characters than english. You'll also get better results.

[Dark Fact]

What do you mean by "He can't have dealings with you"? Does he not want to deal with you because you're a foreigner?

[cavein2000]

Otaku-Ya said he "could not have dealings with me" after the paypal a dollar back and forth check thing.  I gave him an auction number to bid on with all of my info.  I sent another email asking what more could be required, but haven't got a response.  

I've checked out shopping mall japan, but was more looking for a way to search for things I want using the right keywords rather than using a category search.

[dj898]

basically you either need relative in Japan who won't get pissed off when you chase up for some of auctions and can tolerate the dealing - money transfer, shipping and etc. - or use one of those proxy companies - i.e. Celca?

I hassle my relatives for some of auctions and I can tell you it's not easy and probably it cost me more than going through the proxy companies by the amount of gift I sent to her way...

[D-Lite]

For translating japanese use Shopping Mall Japan.

Also try using Google's language tools to translate english -> japanese. Its better to search using japanese characters than english. You'll also get better results.

These are what I do.  I used to urse Rinkya, but SMJ is much better overall.

[akamichi]

It's pretty cool that there are businesses setup just to help people outside of Japan bid on Yahoo auctions.  I wish I would have known about them back around '98-2000 because I saw a lot of cool stuff back then and no way of bidding.  Not even sure any existed then though.

No big deal, I'll just stick with the native interface.

[cavein2000]

I've been browsing using japan shopping mall.  When I type things into a search, I usually get little to no results.  It seems like there should be a lot more return but since I am typing in English I can only get limited results.  Also when I try to search using category, It takes forever and I usually can't find what I'm looking for.  Guess I will just have to keep searching.  Any tips for better searches?

[akamichi]

What are you searching for?  Unless the names of the items are in English, you probably will have a hard time finding specific things.  Most game titles will be written in Japanese for instance.

If you're looking for PCE games for example, you might want to look up the game on pcecp.com and copy and paste the Japanese name from there into the search engine.

[cavein2000]

What are you searching for?  Unless the names of the items are in English, you probably will have a hard time finding specific things.  Most game titles will be written in Japanese for instance.

If you're looking for PCE games for example, you might want to look up the game on pcecp.com and copy and paste the Japanese name from there into the search engine.

Thanks for the heads up.  I think I'm going to try using http://www.okshon.com/

it seems to be a bit more English friendly for me.  Fees don't look incredibly high either!!

[akamichi]

Wow!  There's a lot more of those proxy auction sites than I thought.  Good luck!