My personal reviews on the different sources to obtain your 1/6s. Please note that these are just my personal review. In no way I am affiliated or associated to these shops. This article accounts for my experiences. I definitely encountered difficulties obtaining real reviews on these places, hence, my experiences.
TAOBAO (CHINESE PRODUCTS)
Taobao is currently one of my favorites. There are too many manufacturers originating from China. The brands I usually patronize, e.g. Hot Toys, Very Cool, VTS, Dam Toys, etc are from China. Hence, Taobao is one of the best places to look for 1/6 figurines. Note, I only purchase figurines from China. Items like apparels I will usually go to a local store so that I can try them on. I will also avoid pre-order items on Taobao, because I cannot predict if the sellers will actually disappear by the time the products are released. I cannot verify my statement, but given that preorders usually take 3 - 9 months to fulfill, I simply cannot overcome my obsessive behavior to check when the stocks will arrive. Preorder items are usually marked with a "订金" somewhere in the product description. However, I believe that I will soon give it a try since they usually collect just a very small fee ($10USD?).
An easy way to make sure that your seller is legit is to look for their sales review. I would try to stay away from getting affected by their rep points because I have heard that rep points can be doctored. However, I usually choose to buy an item using a few factors.
AVAILABILITY (现货)
Buying available products usually mean that your product will be shipped as soon as possible. Given my numerous transactions with different sellers, the average time to wait for a seller to ship is products is less than a day (24hrs). I am actually very pleased with with integrity of the sellers.
USER REVIEWS
User reviews are usually accompanied with product pictures that the users have received. My method to ensure that the listing is legit is to find pictures that are not very professionally taken. This way, the pictures have less possibilities of being stolen from another source. I have attached a picture as an example.
Evidences of users purchases and review pictures
Upon clicking on the review pictures, an "unprofessionally" taken picture is revealed
NO. OF SIMILAR ITEMS SOLD
The number of similar items sold gives me a rough idea on how well the seller is being received from buyers regarding a particular stock.
Buying from taobao may be a gamble to some, but if you are cautious, you can definitely obtain items. So far, I have not received any counterfeit items (lol, but saying that itself is an irony, if you know what I mean.).
BUYEE (JAPANESE PRODUCTS)
Buyee was one of the first websites I used for yahoo auctions. There are only 2 categories of items I will buy from yahoo auctions. 1) concert tickets and 2) released toys. I will share about my concert tickets buying experience in another post. But for now, the problem with using yahoo auctions is almost all yahoo auctioneers will not ship overseas. Neither will they wish to deal with overseas buyers. Hence we have the option of using japanese shoppers and forwarding services. Because yahoo auctions will not accept the use of a foreign credit card, those services are commonly used. I do have japanese friends that can buy the things for me, but it is absurd to ask them to do me a favor if I am buying frequently. Hence, I gave buyee a try.
Ease Of Using Buyee
Allows items to be bought easily because the buyee interface tries to mimic the web interface of yahoo auctions. Items can be bought easily with just a few clicks.
Example of a Buyee website upon login
It is however important to note that search entries do not get translated. So, it is also advisable to search in japanese if you are unable to find your item after typing in english. Typing a model number usually works too. The shopping experience in Buyee is generally easy. There is a detailed guide in the website.
Push Factor from Agent Fees
The negatives of buying from Buyee is probably what is bothering me. One of the biggest reasons that push me away from buying from buyee is the ridiculous fees I had to pay. In short, I bought a Kumik headsculpt that cost approximately 6000 yen. Upon completing all the steps presented in Buyee (placing bid, awaiting seller to ship, paying for shipping fees), the total cost for the item to get shipped to Singapore ended up costing me 8000 yen. Compared to Taobao, i would have actually gotten it at a total of 6000 yen if i trusted Taobao at that time. For the crazy amount of items we can collect in the 1/6 world, 2000 yen is a significant amount of money.
Shipping
Shipping took ages too. I waited 7 weeks for my item to arrive. The reason was that the item was made to order, however in no where on the auction description did I read that it was made to order. Buyee was not aware and will not make an effort to take care of these for their customers. They simply process what you instruct them to do.
That said, my experience with Buyee was affected by the huge agent fee and the fact that Buyee's services are not very personalized. I will not use Buyee again. Unless I do not have another choice.
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