Proxy Buying Guide

The Plan Fees are pointless, do not waste your money on them. You can sometimes hit a good time where there’s a coupon for no Buyee service fee. The 200¥ Payment fee will always be there. But you’re looking at 500¥ fee just to buy the item off of Mercari. Buyee doesn’t charge a PayPal fee and they do not use a wallet feature like many other proxies. They do offer many coupon offers though for first time buyers, so usually you can benefit well as a first time buyer. Buyee does not have free consolidation, and they do not always pack their boxes well. Because of this, I’ve always added Protective Packaging which is 1500¥ per package. There is a 1000¥ consolidation fee if you want to ship any items together. You can ship up to 20 items together (I found this out the hard way lmao). So, to make the consolidation fee worth it, you should put as many items into your package as possible. They’ve restricted some of their shipping options because of COVID, but usually I’m spending $20-30 for DHL/EMS shipping; so after the initial purchase and fee, my second fee is usually $50-60 for a parcel to be packed and shipped. Heavier packages have very high shipping costs. I try to avoid buying anything weighty on Buyee. Now into some more nitty gritty things about Buyee:
There is roughly a 72 hour window between an item being listed on Mercari and it becoming available for purchase on Buyee. Some items come up for purchase right away, it apparently depends on the Mercari seller. I messaged Buyee about it and this was their response:

Anyways….the Buyee site proper updates once a day at midnight (JP time). That being said, the items come up for purchase 72 hours after it was listed. So, if the item was listed at 3AM my time, it would come up for purchase at that time, but would not show on the Buyee site until 10/11AM my time. This is important to note if you’re attempting to snipe the item from another buyer. They tend to purchase item rather quickly once you can purchase them, I’ve only had a handful of items bounce back not being able to be bought. This is also one of the only sites you can use if the seller requires a comment to purchase, or you’re looking to buy a single item from a set listing.
The other super important thing to note is that you want to browse on the Mercari site and not the Buyee site. Many items do not roll over to the Buyee site the way they should. If you search on Buyee some items do not show up, but they do if you go through the Mercari window. I highly recommend keeping the Mercari page open instead of looking on Buyee. Just keep the tabs open with items you’re interested in watching; that’s usually how I watch items.

Zenmarket
My preferred proxy if I can use it. It’s a flat 300¥ for any item. Good service, I’ve never had an issue with this site. Must put funds into the site (like a wallet); PayPal has a fee. They also have a perk for frequent shoppers where you can buy on credit, and cut out having to add money to your wallet quite as often. It’s nice to only have to pay once for some things. They do not charge for consolidation and the shipping fee is very small usually. They are the best service with very few fees. They do NOT buy from Mercari JP because of Buyee’s exclusive partnership with Mercari JP. If I’m not buying from Mercari, this is my go-to site. They offer many shipping methods, and let you reselect your shipping method after it has been packed before paying and shipping out the parcel. Their shipping prices have consistently been fair and reasonable.

Neokyo
I absolutely love Neokyo because of their customer service. They’re a smaller proxy that will buy from Mercari JP when their accounts are not being investigated for being a proxy, lol. They’re currently still recovering from merging with another proxy site. They are very good at letting their users know about what’s happen through a support discord. They have a 250¥ fee for purchasing and 500¥ packing fee. Both are reasonable in my opinion. Neokyo is not as fast at purchasing items as other proxies and many of these sites do not work on weekends, so timing is everything. The hard thing about Neokyo is that they do have a Paypal fee associated with purchases, and if you end up having to be refunded, you do not get that fee back. They do have a wallet feature, so if you’re worried, I would just put a fair amount into the wallet so you only get hit with one fee for putting the money into the wallet, and then don’t lose money if you end up having to be refunded. (Hopefully that makes sense). They should have a lot of site features ironed out soon, but right now they are still in a state of trying to find their footing. Their shipping was reasonable and offered FedEx and Surface Mail.

WhiteRabbitExpress
Equally the most expensive and most impressive proxy site I’ve used. Their fees are absolutely insane, here’s a breakdown of the fees I paid for one purchase:

Their service fee is VERY high. I would 100% not recommend using this site unless it is a very rare item and you are willing to foot the cost of an expensive fee. They do buy from Mercari, but it is at a high cost. I only use this site if I REALLY need to snipe an item and I’m worried about it being bought before the 72 hour window is up. That all being said, their customer service is absolutely phenomenal, and they were very professional and listened to my ridiculous requests of cancelling one order and instead buying another one lol. This is another site that does not process requests over the weekend. They offer a bunch of shipping methods much like ZenMarket.

Japonica
Smaller proxy. Will buy from Mercari. Commission rates are on a scale of price as seen below. There is a fee to use PayPal as payment. Decent proxy, currently not accepting new members due to COVID restrictions.

TLDR;
• ZenMarket is the best for anything that is not Mercari.
• Buyee is the only true proxy associated with Mercari, but rare items will be difficult to buy.
• Neokyo, Japonica, and WhiteRabbitExpress will all buy from Mercari.
• All are valid proxy sites that have been tested, but be wary of fees for any of them, and be aware that while the items have low purchase prices, to really make buying from proxies worthwhile you should buy many items and look to avoid heavy items.