ZenMarket Review: The Best Way To Import Retro Games & Collectables From Japan?

I recently visited Japan, where I explored the numerous areas of Tokyo dedicated to video games and collectables. Akihabara was a popular place for this, and although I had an incredible time, it was noticeably an area with overinflated prices.

So, when ZenMarket got in touch to ask us to review their service shortly after my return from Tokyo, I was immediately intrigued and excited to compare it to my experience "on the ground".

Could this be the middle ground between finding Japanese collectables at great prices while using a service that holds your hand through the entire shipping process?

What is ZenMarket?

Put simply, ZenMarket is the "middleman" when importing products from Japan. They will assist with the purchasing of products on select Japanese marketplaces through their website, which allows you to get the cheaper Japanese prices in comparison to buying on eBay.

When items are purchased using your account balance (which you need to top up), these products will ship to ZenMarket's warehouse, where you can then hold them there for up to 60 days, to then eventually put all of your products into a single parcel when you are ready, and this parcel then gets shipped to you directly.

This saves you money on shipping as it's packed into a smaller, single box, and allows you to use ZenMarket's incredible customer service to do it all for you, from packaging every product safely, to tracking it the entire way for you and being on call for you should you need support or want updates.

ZenMarket will assist you with everything, from asking questions about specific products to stopping you from buying from low-quality sellers, to packaging up your purchases individually to save money on shipping.

All you need to do after shipping is pay the import fees, and the package will be with you in no time, but more on that shortly.

The Marketplace User Experience

With ZenMarket being a marketplace, it must be a website that is easy to find what you are looking for, but also a website that entices you to explore more products that may interest you. It needs high-quality search functions and precise product recommendations.

eBay is phenomenal at this, recommending you things you've searched for in the past, offering notifications for certain keywords and showcasing trusted, long-term sellers with respected ratings.

ZenMarket does have a reasonably easy-to-navigate website that offers you the choice to purchase through several marketplaces, such as:

• Amazon Japan
• Rakuten
• JDirectItems Auction (the eBay of Japan)
• MERCARI
• and more

However, I do believe it could be better designed to entice new customers who are not familiar with the service to jump into searching quickly, while offering a seamless tutorial on how the service operates once they're interested.

It can be a little daunting for someone who has never used an import service before when landing on ZenMarket's homepage. It takes a few minutes to understand what to do, and the sheer wall of text can be overwhelming for someone like me who is a "visual learner".

For example, when I want to search for a GAME BOY Pocket, it will show an array of games, accessories, mods and consoles. Which means I have to be specific and enter something closer towards "Nintendo GAME BOY Pocket Console Boxed" for it to understand what I want, and even then, it may require the user to scroll a little while to find what they are looking for.

This confusion may turn away customers, and I believe it needs a little bit more work to be accurate and to entice customers to explore their service on a deeper level.

An overhaul here will likely see more conversions for ZenMarket. Users are lazy; they want things straight away, and with ZenMarket, you do need to be patient with results at times.

Once you understand that, are happy to tweak search terms on the fly and are patient with the service, you will witness an incredible source for finding Japanese gems in the collectable space that many miss.

We have created our own Retro Dodo dedicated landing page to find retro games and collectables on ZenMarket more easily. This is likely more helpful than the homepage for those of you who are specifically looking for retro games.

The Bidding/Buying Experience

The bidding and buying experience is incredibly easy. Some marketplaces are auction houses, such as JDirectItems Auction, which is the equivalent of eBay in Japan, and some are stores that allow you to buy things normally, such as Amazon Japan.

Depending on which marketplace you wish to explore, the buying experience will be slightly different when using ZenMarket; however, the translation, UX and buying process are very simple.

Using auctions it will show you images of the product, the bidding and buy it now price (if it has one) alongside a bunch of data about the auction duration, the buyer, when it was published and how long is left on the auction.

You can choose to outbid normally, or you can even "snipe bid" which basically means you can set a price that ZenMarket will automatically bid for you right at the end of the auction time. This is good for those of you who like to snipe and bid slightly more towards the end to increase the chances of buying success.

One of my favourite parts of exploring ZenMarket is the fact that ZenMarket itself will stop you from bidding on users who have a poor history on the marketplaces. For example, there was a seller who had a history of not shipping products, or taking weeks to do so, and ZenMarket informed me of this automatically before placing a bid.

It's small things like this where ZenMarket flourishes in comparison to its competitors. It saved me from potentially losing money, receiving damaged products from sellers or long delays in shipping.

If you are confused about a product or a seller, or want to know more information, you can actually ask a ZenMarket employee, who then asks the seller in Japanese for you.

Once a response is made, ZenMarket will reply back to you in English with the seller's reply, being the high-quality middleman that you would expect in an import service like this. I tried this and was pleasantly surprised by the speed of responses back, having a full translated reply in just a day about a product which I ended up purchasing.

Once I spent many, many hours exploring ZenMarket, placing bids and racking up a hefty collection, I then waited a few days for the parcels to arrive at ZenMarket's warehouse.

This was tracked in your dashboard, allowing you to see the process from buying to waiting for arrival, to arrival, to waiting to be packaged up in a parcel. The Japanese are efficient, and I must have ordered over 15 items, all of which were received at their warehouse in under a week!

Which is unlike eBay where I find myself contacting sellers all the time to ship things. I was gobsmacked by the sheer speed of all 15 sellers shipping them to ZenMarket in under a week.

Once everything had arrived, I clicked on all of the items that I wanted ZenMarket to package up into a single parcel. 48 hours later, everything was packaged up and sent through FedEx. I added extra protection for 1,000YEN.

There's a wide range of shipping speeds, alongside a choice of shipping services to use. You can calculate your shipping costs before making the parcel too. I chose the standard FedEx Parcel and it did indeed arrive in just 5 days.

Paying Import Fees

With any package coming from another country, you will have to pay import fees, there's no getting around it.

Importing fees are calculated from the cost of the items inside of the parcel, shipping costs and insurance. The more expensive the parcel , the more expensive the import fee.

As an example, my import free from Japan to the UK was approximately 20% of the price of the contents inside of the parcel, the shipping costs, and the insurance.

This will vary depending on what country you live in, but I just wanted to give you an idea of how much it cost me on my end, living in the United Kingdom. It's not a small ammount, but its mandatory.

The Protection

To keep it short and sweet, I was blown away with how well ZenMarket packaged up my collection. I had spent a small fortune on the objects inside (£1,300) and wanted to see if ZenMarket understood that.

Well, they did, and the parcel was packaged immensely well, without a thick cardboard box, extra protection on the corners inside, bubble wrap, recycled paper and every single product was also individually wrapped in plastic, and bubble wrap. Yes, every single item.

This meant the ZenMarket team took every product out of the seller's packaging, inspected it for me, wrapped it in a protective plastic wrapper, used bubble wrap and taped it up individually, to then place in a box that minimises the footprint and shipping size.

I felt like a kid at Christmas unboxing this because of nature of ZenMarket's packaging quality.

There were times when opening that, I had to concentrate on how I removed the packaging. Some of the products I had imported cost over £300, and a small scratch would greatly devalue them, so I had to be incredibly careful with removing tape in areas or cutting certain parts with scissors.

I would have loved an option to request individual packaging types for individual items. This is not a feature on ZenMarket at the moment, but a small "no tape" tag on a certain product, or "do not bend, add extra protection" would have been very useful, and I would have even paid a little extra for it.

Not that it needs it. Everything was delivered in immaculate condition; there was not one single flaw with their packaging service, but I know there are some very big collectors who would like certain things wrapped in certain ways out there.

What does it cost me?

ZenMarket keeps the cost very simple, which is surprising seeing how complicated they make it sound on their website.

They only charge 500YEN ($3.40/£2.50) per item. That's to use their service entirely:

• To use their marketplaces to search for and buy products.
• To offer customer services, to answer questions and to assist with buying.
• To store it in their warehouse for up to 60 days.
• They individually review, wrap and protect each item.
• To put those items in a single parcel, slim-lined to fit everything neatly and efficiently.
• To manage and track your parcel the entire way, from warehouse to door.

There are some fees that may be included if you want photos of each product on arrival at their warehouse, the removal of batteries or small things from items, cancelling purchases after buying them and so on.

There's also a 3.5% deposit fee set by banks and the likes of PayPal when depositing credit into your account. I believe ZenMarket does not see this money, as it goes to the banks/PayPal.

It's best to check out their in-depth fees page to find more information, but all in all, if you use the basic service, it's simply 500YEN per product in most cases.

Overall Experience

I am pleasantly surprised by ZenMarket's service. As mentioned, the initial homepage and the way they try to explain their service to newcomers are a little bit over-complicated and exhausting.

However, once you get past that, as a custome,r you will experience a lovely, warming service with great staff, the chance to find hidden gems in Japanese marketplaces and assistance with the whole journey of buying from Japan.

Yes, it will cost you to use this service, rather than doing it yourself individually with your own Japanese address (if you have one, likely not), but it's as if someone is with you ordering products from Japan, guiding you, offering assistance, revieiwng your products, packaging them up and spectating your box from the second it leaves their warehouse all the way until it arrives.

If you're like me and are somewhat put off from ordering from Japan due to its complexities and unknown tips, ZenMarket is a great way to use a service that holds your hand through the whole process, for a competitive price.

Just remember to consider shipping costs when buying products and packaging them up into a single parcel. This may catch out newcomers, but going in knowing that shipping costs X and import fees will cost X will help you budget your spending.