I’m just glad I can finally get through my backlog of Japanese manga I bought like nearly a decade ago when I was actually living in Japan and was very hopeful about learning Japanese through, I don’t know, osmosis or something instead of actually putting in some effort
My english backlog… I curse it. It does not exist. Too many book fairs/charity stores near here. Let’s not even get into kindle sales.
Buyee is actually pretty nice! (Although I can only speak to my particular shipping situation)
If I get 9 books from honto.jp they’ll each cost around 10 to 14 dollars shipping and other fees included, possibly less now that the yen is so weak
We do have a local Kinokuniya but their stock is completely random and the books aren’t significantly cheaper
How does the tax handling work with Buyee? Do you pay the no-Japan-sales-tax price for the book the way you do when Amazon/cdjapan/Kinokuniya ship direct?
Yeah, I have a backlog of 30 (27 physical + 3 digital) now, says Natively. Some I hold back on purpose, as I don’t want to waste them, like by reading them all at once, too fast. But with the rest my problem is usually: I buy 6 and read just 3, until I want some new ones. I am still too slow with reading I suppose.
Strategy: none. I just read the one which has the most appeal when the last is finished. This usually leads to alternating between more difficult and more easy ones.
Natively backlog: 11 (not including language textbooks and references, and counting series as 1 each). Spreadsheet backlog: 33 (same criteria as above). Nearly half of the latter are novels I’m not ready for yet. At least for manga I’m at the point where I can keep up with current purchases, and most of that backlog is titles I got 20+ years ago. (And, to be frank, may not ever finish just because the things I enjoyed half a lifetime ago aren’t all the same things I enjoy now.)
The only strategy I have is keep reading, focusing on things that are around my current level, and slowly building literacy until I can tackle those backlog books. Oh, and mostly avoiding LNs and novels for new book purchases so that the “too difficult” backlog stays stable at worst. I guess purchase planning also counts as a strategy?
Not quite sure! I haven’t paid enough attention to specifically remember (and also have no idea what that is)
A quick look online shows that you do have to pay import taxes, which are maybe those?
But only for orders over 800 bucks in the US, and I’ve definitely never ordered that much. Customs is apparently around 2-3%?
I don’t know anything though I’m just reading off of this page
As I was half-way through typing this I realized it’s like a sales tax and that it might vary depending on if you’re buying local or national or abroad.
To which I also have no idea because on the Buyee website they just say they’ll charge “a consumption tax as necessary”
Import taxes are what the destination country charges (varies from country to country, usually is at least your local sales tax). These used to get charged by customs on the way in and you had to pay the courier to cover it, but recently it’s changed so that commercial sellers take the destination-country taxes (which is a much nicer experience for the consumer). The Japanese sales tax goes to the Japanese government, and applies if you’re in Japan and buy something, but not if the item is being sold abroad. So Amazon etc don’t apply it for foreign sales. It’s less clear to me what happens with Buyee because they’re a separate company from honto – maybe honto sell the book to buyee and charge Japanese sales tax because it’s a within-Japan sale, and then buyee sell it to you (and any destination-country taxes apply)? Or maybe a business-to-business sale works differently. But the buyee faq suggests you do get charged Japanese sales tax as part of the product fee, which would mean every item is 10% more expensive than if you buy direct from a Japanese online bookshop that offers direct shipping.
It doesn’t seem very clear, no. I guess it’s probably best to assume 10% if they don’t say?
Although 10% at least isn’t a very big increase for a book. Leaves it still well within the range of an average book price
(Ah thanks for explaining btw)
Yeah, it might be that the extra 10% is offset if buyee do cheaper shipping or something, or they might be cheaper at the “one or two book” quantity; but since several other online bookshops will ship direct it didn’t seem to me worth investigating. It’s already enough of a hassle comparing cdjapan vs amazon vs kinokuniya shipping 