chownc

May 26, 2011

Glad you're back!!

July 4, 2010

Hey mull, any update?

December 10, 2008

That's true... I think the currency conversion rates and fees may cause some headaches for this business too.

From what I understood, the US dollar is quite strong at the moment because recently many investors have sold their investments for cash. Because the US$ was the most convenient this pushed it's demand and price up. Although, I may have this totally wrong!

I wonder if this means that people in the US are getting a good deal on imports from Japan & Australia at the moment?

December 9, 2008

Good point guys... My buddy is big into Honda. You're right... he and his friends love the JDM gear.

December 9, 2008

Thanks for the feedback guys. Tony, interesting about the Ebay AU drop-ship guys.

My friend in Japan is a very good one but unfortunately he knows little about cars and car parts!! The idea would be that he would simply receive goods locally in Japan and then ship them on to their respective buyers.

Jon (jmortensen), yes you're right - I think it would be good to go out and buy parts to put up on ebay. Unfortunately, I don't think my friend would be capable of this - just don't think he'd know what to look for. He might be able to negotiate with suppliers of new parts if I guided him... ie. given a Manufacturer and Part #'s

This is where I started to think of Yahoo Auctions Japan... This lets me "view" and read about items remotely and even have my friend ask follow-up questions to the sellers in Japanese asynchronously. I guess it also lets him take ownership of that part of the supply chain.

The question of fees is still a concern - I guess it's the age-old business conundrum... How to provide an attractively priced service but still manage to make enough profit to make it worthwhile!!?

December 7, 2008

Hi guys,

I've been looking at the Yahoo auctions Japan site (http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/) a fair bit lately as I have a friend who was living over there for a while and I'd noticed a few nice parts for my Z. Turns out that most of the Japanese sellers won't ship internationally.

My idea would be to act as a proxy bidder and international forwarding service for anyone wanting to buy from Yahoo auctions Japan. On a customer's request I would place the bid, win the auction and have the item received locally in Japan. Then it could be forwarded anywhere in the world. I know there are some people out there doing this already (mailorderjapan, etc) but perhaps I could specialise in hard-to-get, JDM or just *nice* parts for Z's.

Or maybe this is just a dumb idea?!?!? Are there people on this site doing this sort of thing already? Is there enough demand for these items and would people be willing to pay a premium to get them? I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to advertise on hybridz or any other forums either... not sure how I'd go about marketing the business and keeping the runnning costs down.

These are all just VERY VERY noisy thoughts. Check out the links below and let me know what you think of my idea. I've included some pics from various items on the site.

Thanks, Chris

S30Z - 240Z, 260Z, 280Z

http://page16.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/u30558542

http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k105618190

S130Z - 280ZX

http://page2.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b92365074

(Not sure why this shows up under S130Z... but anyhoo)

Z31 - 300ZX (83-89)

http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e83413056

Z32 - 300ZX (89-96)

Z33 - 350Z

http://page3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c184727372