Thanks a lot everyone, TL truly is the bestest place to ask for online help, no sarcasm. Darkponcho wins at life with his gosu advice.
I used whiterabbitexpress to order and deliver the shirts to my house, shipment itself took less than a week! They didn't charge much, was about 16$ on top of the actual price plus the shipment of course. Great company, very professional and helpful.
Put one on tonight and snapped a few pictures with friends. Love it.
Pedobear:
Second T is long sleeve, purple on black, looks sick. I might upload a pic some day if I'll have a camera around.
This is more of a "please help me" blog, I've been looking for Melt-Banana shirts for a long time and finally after emailing their record company I got an answer. Problem is, I have no idea how to buy those. Let's say I am interested in this item:
Even if I change site layout to English it still has all the prices in yen, all the buttons are not translated either. If someone could be so kind to explain the process of buying a shirt from there and shipping it to the US I'd be really grateful.
From top to bottom of the checkout page (most of it looks accurate, so I assume doing it one at a time will work):
GHz music store
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»Legal representation based on (and returns) The cart contains the following items. Please check. Image Product Name Quantity Price Subtotal Official T-Shirts (Long Sleeve) (Size: S) 2,625 yen (125 yen tax) 2,625 yen Total of 2,625 items Grand total 2,625 »Our members already in here» If you're new here our use of Of our members already here Of our members will be entered automatically when you log in your information here. E-mail address Password If you are new to our available here
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Yen can be changed to USD.
Edit: never mind, I just realized you might need a Japanese ID number/credit card or something like that...
Edit #2: OH WAIT! Look at the top right corner of the page. Do you see what I see? :3
Do you think it will automatically charge me dollars instead of yen? Or should I use some kind of a currency converter online and create an account somewhere? I was afraid to press the buttons because I have no idea how it works.
Thanks for your help man, you even translated it for me. Much appreciated.
As to my second edit, I just realized that the site uses google translate ==;
Also, you'll have to register on their site before you can buy it (if you look at the translated checkout page around which I added spoiler tags), so register first, and then see if you need a specific kind of ID or anything like that.
On August 26 2010 08:01 Z3kk wrote: Ahaha, I used Google Translate.
As to my second edit, I just realized that the site uses google translate ==;
Also, you'll have to register on their site before you can buy it (if you look at the translated checkout page around which I added spoiler tags), so register first, and then see if you need a specific kind of ID or anything like that.
Oh, will do! Thanks man.
On August 26 2010 08:07 DoctorHelvetica wrote: Do you know anyone living in Japan who could buy it and ship it to you?
I wish.. I don't even know if anyone besides Manifesto7 lives in Japan, not going to bother him obviously
Normally when a Japanese company accepts credit cards, they only accept domestic ones, regardless of Visa or Mastercard or whatever. This is because they often utilize a security service that is used by banks in Japan. Your best bet for payment is bank transfer, which is one of the approved methods via their site. I know some people who utilize this when they buy manga direct from Japan, but the bank transfer method fees vary from bank to bank, so it might be best to buy everything at once if you plan on buying multiple items.
That being said, I'm not sure they ship internationally. Their fees for shipping to the various prefectures of Japan are as follows: 北海道地区:945円 北東北地区:630円 南東北地区:525円 関東地区:525円 信越地区:525円 北陸地区:525円 中部地区:525円 関西地区:630円 中国地区:735円 四国地区:840円 九州地区:945円 沖縄地区:1320円
Your best bet would be to email them and ask if they ship internationally, and if so what the cost would be. But if you don't know Japanese that would be kind of impossible. And as of now, your only valid payment option seems to be bank transfer. If they don't ship internationally, you could maybe ship it to some kind Japan TLer's house and have them ship it to you, or you could utilize one of the many web services specializing in Japanese goods.
Still though, overseas shipping + bank transfer fees (or service fees if you use whiterabbit) could add up to more than the cost of the shirt, so it really depends how badly you want this shirt
Your best bet would be to email them and ask if they ship internationally, and if so what the cost would be. But if you don't know Japanese that would be kind of impossible.
You could probably post a short message in English here - I know we have plenty of people here who know Japanese and wouldn't mind translating it for you. I'd do it if my Japanese wasn't so bad.
Thanks, darkponcho. I'll try that goddamn white rabbit, see what the estimate is.
If anyone wanted to do it for me I would throw some extra dollars in for the trouble, can probably afford around 30$ (that's how much 1 shirt is actually). Would need 2 shirts total. But I'll see what the rabbit says first.
On August 26 2010 08:26 Southlight wrote: It might cost a bit but http://www.tenso.com/en/ might be of help.
Nice, same deal as the rabbit? I'll see what they say.
On August 26 2010 08:27 Terrakin wrote: they tour the US (if you're the US that is..) , go to a show, or get a friend in a different state to buy and ship one to you
Only Europe in the near future. I know, it's too bad.
On August 26 2010 08:14 darkponcho wrote: Normally when a Japanese company accepts credit cards, they only accept domestic ones, regardless of Visa or Mastercard or whatever. This is because they often utilize a security service that is used by banks in Japan. Your best bet for payment is bank transfer, which is one of the approved methods via their site. I know some people who utilize this when they buy manga direct from Japan, but the bank transfer method fees vary from bank to bank, so it might be best to buy everything at once if you plan on buying multiple items.
Hmm. I bought manga online from bk1 and used my US credit card fine. I have an account with Schwab and they automatically convert dollars to yen without charging you anything extra. Unlike my chase freedom card.
Your best bet would be to email them and ask if they ship internationally, and if so what the cost would be. But if you don't know Japanese that would be kind of impossible.
They have an option of selecting location and it does say "overseas" though. Kind of strange for them to say you're from overseas and not offer international shipping.
As for the Japanese... I think on a very basic level it could be...
海外に配達できますか?いくらですか?アメリカに住んでいますので。 "Can you ship overseas? How much? Because I live in America. "
On my experience, very few Japanese online stores allow international credit cards. Big stores like Amazon and Rakuten do, but overall its pretty rare.
Your other option is to use a proxy service. The main I use for specialty items and auctions *cough*anime collectibles*cough* is Celga. They do charge handling and other fees, so you might want to check their fee chart to figure out if the markup is worth one or two items.