Yesterday morning I received a call from the EMS Office telling me my package from Japan has arrived and as usual, because I hate waiting for packages I picked it up on the same day. 🙂
This is LIZ LISA 14th Anniversary watch in white. I got this in new condition from Yahoo Japan Auctions for about 8000 yen[1. There’s the pink one currently on sale on YAJ for 10,000 yen]. Originally I wasn’t planning to buy this watch at all but after seeing it on Emiii-chan‘s and Sachiko‘s blogs, I was seriously tempted to get it for myself.
Review:
From the first time I set my eyes on it, I really love the box; it is so cute and looks sturdy enough. There are some stains at the back of the box but that was not a big deal. The watch inside was wrapped around a little cushion which helps to retain its shape. There’s also an instruction manual at the bottom of the box but it’s all in Japanese and I can’t read it. 🙁
The watch is smaller than what I had expected. From the pictures I had seen online I initially thought the ribbons were made of fabric but it is actually made of pleather like the rest of the band. The band has floral prints on it which is very nice. The watch face has rhinestones embedded around it (must be careful not to accidentally dislocate them). On the watch face itself, there are three little hearts which says, “I” “❤” “LIZ” which I think is very cute, and they move around so as not to make it hard for you to tell the time[2. That would defeat the purpose of having a watch in the first place]. XD
There is also a kind of charm bracelet which dangles off the right side of the watch. It is detachable so you could choose whether to wear the watch with it or not. There are three charms: two bows and a key.
Overall verdict: As you could tell, I love this watch very much. While I’m not entirely sure if it’s worth the price tag but it does help to complete a chic outfit though I have to be careful with the charm bracelet – making sure it doesn’t get snagged anywhere.
Next is a short review of Buyee.jp.
I used Buyee as my bidding service. I like using Buyee for my YAJ purchases because it allows real-time bidding which is great because you don’t want to waste time contacting your agent every time someone outbids you which could cost you the item. Plus, the bidding is done by yourself so you are pretty much in control of your money.
The thing about Buyee is that, for items that are less than 5000 yen, the service fee is 500 yen. But anything above 5000 yen, the fee is 10% of the item’s cost. There’s also a fee of 200 yen to transfer payment from Buyee to seller (bank transfer fee, I guess?) which means the minimum fee for every bid is 700 yen. Other fees are the usual domestic shipping fees from seller to Buyee’s warehouse, international shipping fee, package consolidation fee (optional) and protective packaging fee (optional).
What I don’t like about Buyee:
Currently Buyee’s service is only limited to YAJ and Amazon shopping. For a compulsive shopper like me, sometimes I would go beyond these platforms to look for the stuff I like, like searching on Mbok.jp.
Another thing is that, if you use PayPal to make the payments, Buyee doesn’t ship the items to addresses different than the one listed on PayPal due to obvious security reasons[3. Buyee used to allow buyers to ship items to different addresses but it is no longer so]. However, in cases like me where my PayPal was registered on a different country (long story that I cannot even bother to explain here) so this sucks big time because I have to use the only other method, that is using credit card. I don’t like using my CC for online purchases and would only do so if I could not find other ways around it.
My complete explanation on how Buyee works can be found on my Tumblr post here.
