FROM JAPAN vs Neokyo: shipping to Singapore

Taking a typical order — a ¥10,000 item from Mercari Japan, about 1kg once packed, sent to Singapore by EMS — FROM JAPAN works out cheaper by ¥242.

Totals include the proxy's service fee, packing, domestic shipping inside Japan, international postage, any deposit or payment fee, and import tax. Where a service collects tax up front it appears in the “pay the proxy” column instead of “pay on delivery” — the tax is the same either way.

Where the ¥242 actually goes

Part of it is the service fee: FROM JAPAN charges ¥500 against Neokyo's ¥350. The largest single difference on this order is the tax collected up front, worth ¥1,292. Line by line: FROM JAPAN pays ¥1,292 more in tax collected up front; Neokyo pays ¥500 more in packing charge; FROM JAPAN pays ¥150 more in service fee.

Does this hold for other orders?

This flips. If you buy three separate items instead of one, Neokyo becomes the cheaper of the two at ¥16,584. The companies charge on different units — per item, per order, by weight, or as a percentage of the whole transaction — so a result for one basket does not carry over to another. Change the figures in the calculator above and the ranking recalculates.

What each includes for the money

FROM JAPAN: 60 days of free storage, consolidation of several purchases into one parcel, a guarantee on the domestic purchase, an inspection of the item on arrival, insurance on the international leg. Neokyo: no extras bundled at this plan level. A cheaper total with no inspection and no insurance is not the same product as a dearer one that includes both — on a second-hand auction item, where the seller's description is the only thing you have to go on, that difference is worth more than the gap above.

What we could not confirm

Neokyo: payment fee is not published; treated as ¥0