How to use the One Map proxy shopping and proxy bidding service
What is a proxy shopping service?
A proxy shopping or proxy auction service acts as a middleman between online stores and you! While there are many websites that offer international shipping, there are still a lot more that are difficult to access, whether it’s due to high international shipping costs or they simply don’t ship to your country.
One Map by FROM JAPAN is our proxy service that allows you to access items from not one but two countries: Japan and the USA. By going through a proxy service like ours, you get not only access to these sites that are restricted you but also several additional benefits, which we’ll talk more about below.
Why do I need to use a proxy shopping service?
1) To gain access to online shops and auctions from Japan and the USA that you wouldn’t be able to bid on or purchase otherwise.
Japan and the USA have a wealth of items that can be difficult to purchase from abroad. With both countries still having many sites that don’t do international shipping, if you don’t have a Japanese or US address, then you’re blocked out of getting an item sent to you. But with a proxy service, we eliminate this hurdle for you so that no matter where you are in the world, you have access to any Japanese or American item that you want.
Popular type of items that are easier to find when purchased from Japan:
- Bearbrick
- Japanese fashion brands (BAPE, Glamb, G-shock, etc.)
- Anime merchandise, hobby items, and Gunpla model kits
Popular type of items that are easier to find when purchased from the USA:
- Fashion items from American brands like Kate Spade and Coach
- Sports merchandise and collectibles (MLB, NFL, NBA)
- Skincare and cosmetics
2) To find rare finds being sold by other collectors.
Proxy shopping services are the secret of expert collectors.
Popular type of items that you can find rarities of in Japan:
- Vinyls, CDs, and DVDs
- Collectible cards (Pokemon Cards, Yu-gi-oh Cards)
- Limited stock fashion collaborations
Popular type of items that you can find rarities of in the USA:
- Music equipment such as limited edition guitars
- Vintage toys
- Comic books
3) To find new items sold at cheaper prices or get sent to you for a cheaper shipping fee.
Popular type of items you can find at cheaper prices from Japan:
- Luxury brand items (luxury brand bags from Louis Vuitton or Gucci, or watches from Rolex)
- Japanese cameras and camera parts
Popular type of items you can find at cheaper prices from the USA:
- Motorcycle and Car parts
- Licensed American media items (Disney, Marvel, etc.)
How to navigate the One Map website
We’re assuming you’re completely new to our site and service if you’ve arrived here, and if so, we highly recommend checking out our For First Time Users Page, which goes pretty in-depth when it comes to explaining how our service works.
For the rest of this blog post, we’ll be teaching you how to navigate our website and we’ll do our best to make it understandable to anyone who’s never used it before.
Below, you will see what our website looks like when you open it:
1: Service tabs – Here you can switch between our services: our Japan proxy shopping service, our Right Now on eBay proxy auction service, and our USA proxy shopping service.
2: User navigation –
From left to right, you have:
Your Cart, where you can take a look at what items you’ve put in your cart from browsing;
Shipping Instructions where you can fill in details about how you want your items shipped to you once you’re ready to proceed with that step;
Charge 2 Pending Items, these are the items that have already been ordered for you and are just awaiting the second step of payments such as the international shipping fee
Watchlist/Favorites, here you can easily keep track of items from auctions so you can see if they’ve been sold already or have changed prices or items from our flea market and shopping sites to see if they’re still available, and;
Your My Account page where you can change your account details, see your payment history, your remaining deposit balance and FJ Points, and much more.
3: Current campaign information – We’re constantly having campaigns on-going so keep an eye out to get some savings! If you click on the banner, you’ll get taken to our On-Going Campaigns page where you can see what coupons or campaigns are happening now!
4: Stores list (Japan only) – Here you can find all the different Japanese online stores you can make bids on or purchase from! You can click each one to get started and we’ll explain at a later article more in-depth information about the differences between these stores. Each store has their own page so you can get a better idea of what you can find there and make it easier to search too!
5: Our multi-purpose Search Bar – Here you can enter a brand name or item name in Japanese (for Japan stores) and English (for USA stores). On the left hand drop down button, you can even easily filter out items based on categories. Or, if you already found the item you want outside of our website, you can simply copy and paste the URL of that item on this search bar and it does all the hard work for you! You’ll get either a listing for that item on our page or will lead you to a manual price quote request page where we can purchase that item for you.
For any other details or questions
We also have a Q&A page that you can find here! There are various questions divided into categories such as General, Auction, Shopping, Payment and more!
You can also see from the image we included below that there’s also a keyword search feature where you can type in the keyword for a topic or issue you might be interested in, and it will give you search results for that topic. Questions are also further divided into our FROM JAPAN and FROM USA/Right Now on eBay services to make it more convenient for you.
If your questions weren’t answered here, we also have a Contact Form you can reach our Customer Service with, or you can also send them an email directly via info@fromjapan.co.jp to reach them.
And with that, you should be all ready to place your first order or bid with our proxy service!
