Peter's Japan blog

After having used (and tried to use) some forwarding services, I can do some recommendations and where to stay away. I will only talk about the ones that I have experience with. (so I don't know for example for Celga)

First you have to see what you want to use it for:

1. you want to bid on Yahoo Auctions (JapanToDoor, Akibado; Celga also does this, but no experience with)

2. you want to buy stuff from online shops which don't ship overseas (99.9% don't)

   1. You cannot read Japanese, but can find the product page (JapanToDoor, Akibado)
   2. You can read some Japanese and can register on the online shop yourself, but you need an address in Japan: Tenso, JapanToDoor
3. You want to join the official fan club of your favorite artist: Tenso, JapanToDoor

First up, the ones to stay away from:
- Mail Box Japan (www.mailbox1.jp): complete hoax, at least it was for me, tested it with a magazine a year ago, got nothing, no mail of arrival.
- Akibado (www.akibado.com): they used to be good for both online buying and bidding on YAJ (even a real-time automated bidding service), but they were a bit slow, and got slower and slower, and now I've been mailing for more than a year, to have them send my last items which had not been shipped to me yet.

That leaves the last 2 which I have also used and were successful and reliable. Both were advertised on DannyChoo.com, which usually means they are reliable. Both have free registration.

• JapanToDoor (www.japantodoor.com):
  Rather expensive, they have three different account types with different service fee systems depending on your needs, but they do offer a very complete service, from online shopping, auction bidding and providing an address in Japan to send mail to. But, they are rather expensive... And one downside to the provided address in Japan, you have to inform them within 2 weeks in advance, that a letter or package will arrive at your address, or they won't accept it... Read their website for all service fee systems.
  Ideal for: online shopping (without Japanese knowledge), auction bidding
• Tenso (tenso.com):
  Basicly provides you with an address in Japan and low service fees. They can also consolidate some items. For what I have used them at this time, they charge 490yen per item forwarded, plus shipping to your country of course. They also have a handy tool for copying your japanese address in parts.
  Ideal for: online shopping (with ability to use or decipher Japanese websites including YAJ), artist fan club

Both sites accept PayPal, and JapanToDoor also accepts credit cards.

NOTE: I know there are other 3rd-party service provider that are known to be trustable like Celga, fdjp, etc. but I have not used them before, so I cannot say anything about them. These two don't provide you an address in Japan though, just online shopping and bidding.