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Originally Posted by saltywetman
oh i've used those services for audio stuff and it really eliminate any savings you'd get vs getting something that ships to your door like japanparts and blackhawkjapan. That and they usually don't give you a definitive quote until the package arrives at their depot making it a gamble not knowing the shipping charges upon time of purchase. Not to mention any form of warranty or problems with defective items would be much more tricky to resolve with a company that does not ship overseas vs one that does
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You're right in that shipping is unknown until the item arrives at the proxy so there's a bit of risk with that and defective items. Savings depends on what you buy and where you buy from.
From Japan had a weekly deal where you saved 10% off purchases from Rakuten Japan so I saved $900 on 17x9.5 TE37 Sagas (around $2700 landed) and a friend saved $1000 on 18x9 Advan GTs. It's definitely worth it when it comes to high end wheels but they recently reduced the discount to 5% unfortunately.
For smaller items, I usually ask if others are looking for anything so we can split shipping to make it more tolerable. Luckily my circle of friends is all into high end JDM parts so we have shipments constantly going. Also, when you spend more than ¥400K (around $5K) in the last year on a rolling basis, you save 10% off shipping. For this reason, we only use my account to import parts and have spent tens of thousands over the last few years.
Overall, we've had very pleasant experiences and there was only one shipment where a set of wheels got a bit scuffed up from transport but most of it buffed out.