ZenMarket Reviews 9,178

Somehow, despite being the integrated proxy service for certain Japanese websites, they are unbelievably slow when it comes to actually ordering the items. What's the point of saying they can be used to order overseas if by the time they get around to purchasing the goods they have all sold out? It took over a day for them to finally start ordering the goods and by that point the most wanted pieces had sold out. With the whole deposit system and slow website, I'd just recommend using another service altogether.

The best proxy service out there!
They're quick to buy your items, quick to package, and quick to send. They always package items with the utmost care too so you can be rest assured that whatever you purchase will be as secure as possible.
The customer service is fast to respond too, so if there's any issues or questions, you will get your answer fast.

I used it to buy products from stores that FROMJAPAN does not accept. But some Rakuma sellers still don't accept it.
High fees (yes, I'm referring to PayPal), Horrible payment system and an ugly website. Their system is very bad. But, at least they make a decent customs invoice.

Package 21 finally arrived. It arrived safely. Intact and well-prepared. The delay was due to the end of the year and customs. But aside from those drawbacks, top marks again for this incredible service.

I switched to zenmarket because buyee doesn't allow combined domestic shipping, but zenmarket automatically requests combined shipping for auctions won within 24 hour period, "items must be won from the same seller between 5:00 a.m. JST (Japan Standard Time) and 4:59 a.m. the next day" Another big reason i'm glad i switched is that buyee started charging 15.5% of the value of the item for "tarrifs" even though books are exempt from tarrifs. I recently shipped a small book from Japan to the US, and there is a clear legal exemption for books such that the tarrif for them is 0% and even though US customs does not charge a tarrif for books, buyee required me to pay 15.5%, which goes against the spirit of the exception to the US law regarding tarrifs and not hindering the free flow of information. My order with zenmarket on the other hand was 0% tarrifs so zenmarket respects the spirit of the exemption in US law. When i had concerns about zenmarket's automatic request for combined domestic shipping because my balance went into the negative, customer service was great: Abdelmegeed assured me that the shipping was combined and confirmed the price, and Ashraf also responded to the same email and even answered a question i didn't think to ask. When i was concerned about the duty percentages which should be 0% for books and contacted customer service asking them to make sure the invoice listed them as periodicals and use the specific codes for periodicals that show they are exempt from tarrifs, Bua reached out with a detailed explanation that help set my mind at ease. When the packing was done all of the books were listed perfectly and with the proper codes, zenmarket gave me 500 zen points just for signing up, which was useful to help pay for international shipping which was a really good price, the packing was really well done with a thick piece of cardboard at the bottom, the five books were each in a plastic bag, and all five wrapped in bubble tape, and the inch or so of empty space on the left and right side of the box was stuffed with bubble wrap, the box they shipped it in was perfect; not too big or small. I chose fedex shipping and fedex did a great job as well despite winter storm fern affecting the memphis hub. Despite ordering in January when zenmarket may have had a back log from holiday shopping, the January holidays, and dealing with a labor shortage, everything went really quickly and smoothly with zenmarket: the shipping from auction seller to the warehouse and the amount of time it took them to pack the parcel for international shipment all went quickly and smoothely. I also appreciate zenmarket provind the option to make deposits to my zenmarket account with my credit card and have my credit card charged in japanese yen rather than usd, since my credit card uses a very good exchange rate and no currency conversion fees, the final charge on my card in usd is very close, within a dollar, of what the exchange rate reported on google. If you have your card charged in USD on the other hand, depending on the exchange rate your card uses and if they charge currency conversion fees, then you might not get as many JPY for your USD because a different exchange rate is used, the same is true with paypal, so if your credit card uses a good exchange rate and doesn't charge currency coversion fees then you can get more JPY per USD you are charged, if this is the case for you, make sure to check the box to be charged in japanese yen on the deposit funds to your account page, because the default is set to charge in USD. I appreciate that zenmarket gives us this option. Considering the environment, tarrifs, etc, It seems like a dozen things could have gone wrong, but by The Grace of God and with the help of zenmarket and fedex, everything went really well, the shipment even arrived earlier then expected. God is Great!!!

Fast shipping and good shipping rates. Easy to use and navigate the site.

A fantastic overall experience from buying to shipping.

Hello,
Thank you so much for your service. Picture service, packaging, customs declaration and transit, everything went perfectly fine. Thank you again!

Great communication when there were issues with shipping

Excellent service with competitive shipping rates and options. I have only used their service twice, and both times the items were fishing rods, so there is no repacking or strengthening required. I was sceptical using this sort of service, as i buy most my Japanese tackle from a few stores that do ship overseas.
This service does open a whole expanded selection of stores that dont ship and excellent second hand market.
I used a well know competitor of Zen for a small purchase and was absolutely ripped off in fees and very high false shipping rates. ( i know what it costs from much experience).
So Zen surprised me and have been excellent , with actual true shipping rates and lots of different options.
I choose DHL as i know they have beeb very good.
Excellent service overall.

Adding fees, expensive shipping.

I sorry all my fault I can’t read Japanese manga, I want only Illustration but I can’t take Illustration.
I will send back you refund me.

Received in France after 2 months and a half.
Thank you all at zenmarket , it was (insanely) perfectly packed !!!
Thank you for you great / hard work.

Wonderful shipping! Very well packaged. I'm very happy with the service. The process can be a touch complicated at first, but once you learn it, it's very straightforward and gives me access to Japanese goods I wouldn't be able to purchase otherwise.

Was sceptical at first, sending a substantial amount of hard earned cash half way around the world......
This is how it goes, you see a guitar on eBay you've been lusting for, it's only available in Japan. Who is the seller? Well, probably a broker who will make money out of you by selling the instrument first. They will then pop off down to the actual music store and purchase it for a good deal less, you know the rest.
Seek out the item for yourself, find the actual store in Japan, then, you will probably find that the store does not ship internationally. If you are lucky enough though, ZenMarket may just come to your aid.
A bit of time and effort and some luck, granted. But hey, it worked for me.
I was fortunate enough to find my item on Digimart who happen to be on the ZenMarket list. Simple, copied the URL into my ZenMarket account page, they took over. It was checked and was available and a quote was produced. I already felt better that I was dealing with a real company and therefore less chance of losing my cash.
I used my credit card, there are service charges added to the quote which deal with the exchange rate as ZenMarket only work with Japanese Yen. I checked my HSBC account and no exchange rate charges were charged by the bank so I guess it worked.
I will not go through the whole process as it is clear from then on. ZenMarket will communicate throughout very clearly. You will not pay any more until the packing stage whereupon you have choices.
I have to say that there are small charges by ZenMarket and some of the stores that they list. I'm not sure if it would be worth it if buying small or inexpensive items.
ZenMarket came through perfectly for me, and I saved a few hundred GBP.
P.S. The guitar remained on eBay for a few days before it was removed by the seller (not the Japanese store) as it was no longer available. Smug mode...

From purchase to sending out the item, it took 2 weeks. Plus a few days to arrive, it would be almost 3 weeks time. Hope the whole process would speed up in the future.

First time using this service. I was planning on ordering some items, I followed the instructions, was prompted to add funds into the account to place the order.

I picked wize as the transfer method and followed all instructions given. After the transfer from my wize account was completed I went back to the ZM page and found that the funds were not in. Refreshed a few times, double checked on wize that the transfer went through. Still nothing. Have been trying to get help from them ever since but they're not responding at all. Not on any platform. I see that they're replying to bad reviews here, even as recent as an hour ago. But for the customers that actually need help? Nothing. Feels like I just got scammed out of some cash. Completely and utterly disappointed.

What are the pros and cons of using ZenMarket? Pros; my parcel was well packed (I did pay the extra 1000 Yen). Cons: The whole experience was extremely expensive, about three time the cost of normal shipping, which in this case came to about $AUD700. What did I get for my $700? I really don't know. It also took an awfully long time. Between my initial purchase of the item to actual shipping took 22 days. 22 DAYS!!!!. I bought a similar item at the same time and didn't use ZenMarket, it was shipped in two days. So not only was it super expensive it was horribly slow. Would I use ZenMarket again? Not if I can help it. Would I recommend to my friends to use ZenMArket? Absolutely not - in fact I've already told them to avoid it.

What’s VERY good about "Zen Market" ... when you ask a question, you DO get a reply! And what’s even better, the reply comes from a real human being! AND what’s EXCELLENT, the same person answers you every time. In my case, it was a certain DAVID who dealt with my queries and he was most helpful.

Your service ended up costing me $20 more than what was shown in your "calculator".
Even if this turns out to be my mistake, it still raises questions about how "intuitive" and "transparent" the service is.