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Well, overall the website migration has been pretty smooth.  One of my customers told me that it still doesnt work with safari and thats a little disturbing. Almost all users have been very happy with the move so far. Alot of new features are added to the system and now customers can definitely see the entire process of their bidding in almost real time.

Most users truly appreciated the smooth bidding process now. Almost not a single bid has been missed so far and thats a very good news. We have had a few little “gotchas” today as well but they were fixed pretty fast by the developer. The web team is a truly  professional team and truly dedicated to what they do and what they have done so for MOJ.

The next big move would be our email move. I am hoping to make the email move as painless as possible.  Hopefully, we wouldnt lose any emails between the switch hours. I am determined to move everything within the next 3 three weeks time. So far, I have my web work on my head all the time, whether I write back to my customers or pack their items, the website work is there. Its there even when I go to bed or wake up in the morning. I constantly keep checking it. This thing has taken a heavy toll on my personal and professional life. But when I think about the overall results, the feeling is great. Almost all customers are very happy with what we have got now and Nothing makes me happier than have satisfied customers. I would be able to focus on our core business now without worrying about the little technical issues. Please expect a much better level of customer service from now on.

Hey guys,

Instead of writing individually to everyone, I thought I would just write a long post and explain most of the stuff here in one run. In my last post, I mentioned that we will be moving it over the weekend. It was not a lie but I was dead wrong on that one. We are going to move the system gradually now. Instead of a shock, it would be good to go slowly, move slowly and keep an eye on testing the system. So far, the testers are doing fine and they are not complain….something very rare for testers.

The good news is that the website is ready. A number of our heavy bidders have been using it and it seems like the stability testing is working fine. We are moving all our existing customers to the new system one by one. All new customers are automatically informed about the new site and requested to use the new site. I am going to write a little note tonight on the old website log in page for directions. We hope will try to make the transition for our customers as trouble free as we can. As far as our work load is concerned, Peter summarized it very well in a single sentence. He said ,”must be hell to move all those customers to the new system”. Well, never been to hell, so I really cannot comment on that but we are definitely feeling some of the heat over here.

With the new system, we built it with customer opinion in mind. We never forgot about the emails we have had about the troubles with the existing system. A number of new features are added now:

1. The Bid system feels good now. Trust me on this one.

2. Payment updates and item receive updates are both in real time.

3. We moved our entire system to Japanese Yen now. It would be very easy for non USD based customers. EU, NZ, AU and CA and some others would be happy with this.

4. You can see your entire bid process with all the billing, including the item cost, bank fees, local shipping, our charges, and any other handling charges for larger items in real time. This is the good part is that you will know almost in real time what you are doing to your wallet.

I got to run now. Will be writing more in a few hours today. I have got to complete this post.

Well, I didnt write any udpates last night. I was pretty much drained after a long day and a complaints from customer who couldnt sign up and login properly to the new system. It seems to be working ok now.

Our Existing Customers:

Unfortunately, existing customers would have to sign up as well. At the same time, if you have items with us in our office, we request that you keep using the old website and old system. No, we are not trying to punish you guys with the old system. The work load is just too much and to move each and every bid at the same time to then new system would most probably create massive delays for everything we we including seller contacts, payments to sellers, item registrations, shipments etc. Thats why we request a fresh start for everyone.

If you already have placed bids on the old system, please keep up and put up with the good old system but if you are tired of using the old system like me and myself and would like to move, then please talk to us. We would look into your account and make a painless transition for your entire account. Alternatively, we can just cut off your existing account status and start a new one. We will do whatever we can to make the move smooth and trouble free for our customers. Last thing we want to do is to create a confusion especially with all your bids and payments and any special orders etc.

On a side note, with the continue support and trust of our customers, we have experienced quite a bit of growth. With the new site, we are able to offer many new services as you can see from our new website. This growth has not been without its pains. If there has been any delay in invoicing, shipping or any other excuse, we sincerely apologize for that. We are pretty much done with the website. Now, we are going to focus on the customer service. We will try to be as fast as our customers can put up with us. This is the goal. Lets hope and work together to reach that goal.

Hi guys,

Its unfortunate and I am very sorry to announce that I just got an email from our hosting company that they will be down May 13, sunday from 3-8pm JP time. This means our website wouldnt be accessible for the almost entire bidding time. Being an ex system admin, I assume that there is a high possibility that they wouldnt be able to bring the system back up and running on time….just my guess. If there are any bids you have scheduled for sunday, please dont wait for the last minutes. Place the bids right away. If you find something on YJ by chance on sunday evening hours, please send us the bid info immediatly and we will manually place them for you. To manually place bids, we will need the bid URL/ item ID and your maximum bid price you are willing to pay. We will place bids for all those customers who have a deposit with us. I will be online for sure from 7pm onwards on Sunday. If there is no deposit from you, please make sure we have a deposit from you on time.

I also have another very important announcement to make about the site update and site move. We have got our own dedicated virtual host instead of using a shared host. We have had lots of down times over the last one year or so. That host was good for a long time but recently you guys had experienced quite a few down times plus our needs have also changed. We are at point where we really cannot afford any down times anymore. We will have two servers now. The main MOJ server will still be based in California, USA. But the other server will be based in the UK to make sure one system is not affected by another system. They are both hosted by different hosts and have no relationship to each other whatsover.

There will be a planned site move next weekend either May 20th on Sunday or May 21st Monday. The move will be sometime in the morning hours jp time when the bid are usually quite. We assume and hope that there will not be much down time but if the site is not accessible, please check out here for latest updates on the site. If you plan to bid in those hours, please send your bid item IDs and your max bid prices and we will manually place bids for you.

When we move the site next weekend, we will also have new website as well. With the new system update, we have changed the entire site structure and functionality. You will have a better understanding of the status of your bids and shopping services from websites. You will be able to see the entire process of your bid status in almost real time. This will include whether the payment of your items has been made or not and whether your items have arrived in our office or not. You will also be able to see the entire invoice for your items. You will be more up to date on the status of your items and you will be able to receive your items faster.

We will also have a live chat system for a few hours a day…..to give faster and better service to our customers.

Here are a couple images of the new system coming up in a week time!!

Here is our new face of MOJ–Still lots of formating to go but its almost ready. Yes, some sort of live support will be provided as well.

And please join us to say a very big thank you and a sincere goodbye to the old bid system. The old system served us very well but it had its limitations. Its time to move to the new system and give the users what they wanted for quite a while–control and monitoring of bidding and shopping.

I am very excited to see and use this new system and cant wait to have all our users have full access to the new system.

Here is an image of the New Bid System

Yahoo Japan Auctions is sometimes quite slow process. Sometimes, it seems an extremely slow process to the impatient. Here is how the whole process works.

You send us a bid or you place the bid yourself online with our proxy bid system on yahoo japan auctions. We contact the seller or the seller contact us back usually within 24-48 hours or Monday morning.

If we already have the payment info from the seller, we will make the payment right away after checking the seller profile. If the item is more than 30,000 yen, we most probably will call him to confirm his phone number and real identity.

After the payment is made, usually, we get the items within 72 hours…but sometimes it may take longer. It usually depends from seller to seller. Some are very fast and some are not very fast.

As soon as we receive the item, we register it in our office and place the item with your items items in “your space in our office”.

If you have more than one item, we usually combine them. However, if you have only one item and you do not intend to place more bids, please tell us so we dont keep your item for any reason. We would love to get your items to you ASAP.

This whole process may take  from 4-7 days…

To make things faster, there are a few things our customers can do.

1. Please send us complete details in your first email instead of sending us a short email without any details. If you have a question about an item,  please dont forget to send the link, your max bid price and any other questions you may have. This single email would make things much faster and reduce miscommunication and misunderstanding.

2. If there is an urgent bid going to be over in a few hours time and if you are sending us a deposit, please dont forget to  send us the item ID and your max bid.

3. If you ever get an error, please make sure you send us the item ID and your max bid price you were using. We may be able to place the bid for you. We dont make any promises but we are usually online in the evening hours for any urgent bid orders from our customers.

I will continue updating this thread with more info…

I just shipped 39 boxes today via something called LCL or less container load. Let me talk a little bit about LCL. LCL is mostly used by customers with lots of items or items that cannot be shipped by regular post office. Mosts of the car parts dealers use LCL for larger items like bumpers, hoods, seats, engines, wheels, front lops, suspensions, transmissions, muflers, turbines etc. We do not handle engines at this time but would be handling them soon in the near future. If you are looking for engine shipments, please talk to us before you place any bids so that we can make proper arrangements.

More to follow on LCLs and FCLs…full container loads.

Well, probably the most complicated part of Japan Auctions is the translation of Japanese language into a decent language that will make some sense. There are numerous tools available online at this time that can help you with translating your Yahoo Japan Auctions. One of the most prominent ones is the google translation tool. Its in english and it works most of the time. Besides google, there are a few others as well that are explained on the translation section of the site. Please check out the translation tools. One of the very good tools I have seen is the word by word translation. Its quite helpful for getting the meaning out of certain words. Its develeoped by monash university and if you just type monash university kanji translation in google, you will get to the tool. Its late and I am very tired after preparing for an LCLs today. LCL is a less container load and is used mostly for shipping bulk items like large car parts like bumpers, hoods, wheels, seats but NO ENGINES from yahoo japan auctions. Engines are still very complicated to handle and till I have the forklifter and a huge seperate warehouse for full container loads, engines wouldnt be handled.
Its almost 11pm. Its been a long day and tomorrow would be even longer than today. Time to hit the bed now…..

Japan presents one of the richest markets in the world. If you have a product that you would like to introduce to the Japanese or test market in Japan or if you are a unique product seller, selling on Yahoo Japan Auctions can be your test market. The starting cost of doing business in Japan is low and with a proper plan and coordination, we at MOJ can definitely help you with the start.

Please check our site for more details on this. I am going to write more here in the next few days.

There are absolutely no hanlding charges for smaller items like anime cels, small quantity CDs, small quantity video games and other smaller items. For the rest YES we do have handling charges for larger items—items that costs more labor time, packing accessories, and space. The handling charges varies from item to item. There are certain items where we have fixed charges. They are explained quite clearly in our car parts section.

I am going to explain the shipping costs in this blow post one by one so that its made clear to our customers. The most complicated issue comes with handling charges for video games. Video games are usually not easy to assess due to their quantity and size. If you are winning games like single or small quantity video games, there will be no charges. However, if you are bidding on a video collection set that comes with 2 or 3 consoles and 20 video games, then handling is completely different. It would definitely require more space, more labor to repack with your other items and more packing material. Thats why, we have some sort of handling charges for these items.

I think it would be very unfair to to handle a large item like this for $6 as compared to handling a single game CD for $6. Here is a great example of a large item…It doesnt mean we wouldnt help on larger items. We definitely will go the few extra steps but we would appreciate your understanding on larger items like this.

Usually, the cost of items from yahoo japan auctions is not that much but the the shipping cost makes it very very expensive. This cost is particularly more expensive for low cost cheap items like Japanese manga etc. Its usually cheap but very heavy.
One good solution is to seriously look into the cost difference of EMS and surface shipping. EMS is fast, safe and very expensive. Surface is slow, a little risky for fragile items and really cheap. For heavy items that are not very fragile, surface is the way to go. Here is the shipping cost info EMS and AIR/SAL/Surface
Another big problem with surface shipping is box size limits. USA, Australia and New Zealand allow a maximum of 2 meters box size. This means that the 2 x width + 2x height + 1x length must not be more than 2 meters. Believe it or not, 2 meters is very very small box size when you add these up. The worst victims of shipping costs are Australia and New Zealand. They not only have the box size limits but they have the weight limits even on their ems shipping with a max limit of 20 kg. A large 18 inch wheel can easily reach over 20 kg and 2 meters box size.

I am going to write more on larger car parts like engines, transmissions, bumpers, seats, side skirts, and other items that are very heavy and usually cannot be shipped easily. If you are interested in these parts, please talk to us before you place any bids. If you are not sure about the costs, please read the shipping info….the costs could be prohibitively expensive. If you are a reseller, then please think about LCL or less container load. You could combine your items within a given time period and then we will ship them together in a single shipment.