Buy From Suruga-ya. We Shop the Full Japan-Only Catalog — You Just Get the Package.
Suruga-ya (駿河屋) is one of Japan's biggest used-and-new goods retailers — physical stores all over the country plus a huge online catalog at surugaya.jp covering retro video games and consoles, anime and prize figures, trading cards, manga, CDs and DVDs, model kits, doujin work, and model trains and other railway collectibles. Most of it is used, single-copy stock bought and sold by Suruga-ya itself, not individual sellers — once a listing sells, it's gone, with nothing held in reserve behind it.
Suruga-ya does run its own official English-language global store (suruga-ya.com) that ships internationally and takes a credit card directly — so for some items, you genuinely don't need us. But that global storefront only carries a portion of what's listed on the Japanese site, some listings there are excluded from international shipping outright, and Suruga-ya's own support has confirmed directly that the Japanese domestic site itself (surugaya.jp) does not ship overseas at all. If what you want is only on the Japan-only side, or you're trying to combine it with something from Mercari or Yahoo! Auctions into a single shipment, the official global store can't get you there.
Even once you're on the Japanese site, Suruga-ya grades used condition with its own rank system — S, A, B, C, D — described in Japanese, with its own house rule that an unlabeled listing just means ordinary used condition rather than something being wrong. Reading that correctly, and the surrounding listing details, is its own small barrier even before shipping comes into it.
How It Works
- 1
You send us the listing, or tell us what you're after if you haven't found the specific one yet.A direct surugaya.jp link is fastest. If you only know roughly what you want, we can search the Japanese site for you — just know that for scarce used stock, the gap between finding it and someone else buying it can be short.
- 2
We check the listing's condition grade and details before buying anything.We read the Japanese condition rank (S/A/B/C/D) and any notes on the listing, and flag anything worth knowing before you commit.
- 3
We buy it immediately at the listed price from our Japan-registered account.Suruga-ya is fixed-price, first-come-first-served — there's no negotiating and no reserving, so we complete the purchase as soon as you confirm.
- 4
If it sells before we can complete the purchase, nothing is charged.Popular used stock, especially single-copy items, can move fast — that's the main risk here, not us declining to buy it.
- 5
It's received at our address in Japan.Inspection is available if you want it — just ask, and before it ships we'll confirm it's the item described and check for obvious damage, a match-and-condition check, not a functional test. If you skip this, it goes straight to packing.
- 6
We pack it — standard protective packaging, reinforced for fragile items, or custom crating/palletizing for oversized pieces on request (may cost more) — then weigh it and send you a separate invoice for shipping.That's billed separately from your original quote, since it depends on the actual weight and size once it's packed. If you're also buying from Mercari or Yahoo! Auctions, tell us and we'll hold everything to ship together.
- 7
Once that's paid, we ship it to your US address, usually via DHL, in about 7–14 days.That's a typical range, not a guarantee — customs and carrier delays happen.
- 8
Customs duties are paid on delivery, and we provide the customs paperwork.This is a cash-on-delivery-style charge from the carrier when your package arrives — not something we can prepay or fold into our quote, so budget for it separately.
Pricing
Our service fee is 8–15% of the item's price, with a $20 minimum, on top of what you pay Suruga-ya — the exact rate depends on the specifics, so you'll see the real number on your quote. Shipping and packaging are billed separately once we know the actual weight and size (see step 6) — they're not part of this quote.
If it doesn't go through:
- The item sells to someone else before we can complete the purchase — nothing is charged, including our service fee.
- Cancel after we've already bought it on your behalf — we refund whatever we can recover; our service fee isn't refunded, since the sourcing work is already done.
- The item turns out to be un-exportable, or customs rejects it — we refund the purchase price minus any costs already incurred, and tell you exactly what those were.
Refunds go back through Stripe to your original payment method, typically 5–10 business days. Shipping and packaging fees are refundable until the parcel is dispatched — once it's with the carrier, they're not.
What We Buy
We focus on antique, vintage, and collectible items on Suruga-ya — retro video games and consoles, anime and prize figures, trading cards, model kits and die-cast, model trains and other railway collectibles, manga, and doujin work. That's where the Japan-only side of Suruga-ya's catalog runs deepest, well beyond what's listed on their English global store.
Why This Works
We're already set up to buy on Suruga-ya's Japanese site from a Japan-registered account with a Japan receiving address — the thing that actually gets you past surugaya.jp's no-overseas-shipping policy — so we can read the listing and condition grade in Japanese, buy it the moment you confirm, and fold it into a shared shipment with anything else you're sourcing from Japan.
FAQ
They do, at suruga-ya.com, and for items listed there it's a legitimate option on its own. We're for everything else: items only on the Japanese site (surugaya.jp), listings excluded from the global store's international shipping, or when you want a Suruga-ya item combined with a Mercari or Yahoo! Auctions order in one shipment.
No — Suruga-ya is fixed-price, first-come-first-served. There's no bidding; the risk is someone else buying it before we do, not a rising price.
Nothing is charged — you only pay once we've actually completed the purchase.
Suruga-ya's own system, roughly: S is unopened or near it, A is good with light wear, B is usable but with more visible wear (often on the box or case), C has noticeable damage or missing extras, and D means significant damage or something that doesn't work properly. An unlabeled listing just means ordinary used condition by their own convention, not that something's wrong — we'll flag anything we think you should know before buying.
Credit or debit card, Alipay, or WeChat Pay, all through Stripe's hosted checkout. For large or unusual orders, we may arrange a wire transfer instead.
If it turns out to be significantly not as described, we'll step in and raise it with Suruga-ya on your behalf. Any resolution depends on their own policies — sales are considered final once we've purchased on your behalf, return shipping is your responsibility, and we can't guarantee the outcome.
No — we confirm the item matches the listing and check for obvious damage, but we don't power things on or run a functional test. For retro consoles and electronics especially, that's worth knowing going in.
Shipping alone typically runs 7–14 days once we have the item — getting the item itself is usually fast, since it's a direct fixed-price purchase rather than an auction.
Also shopping on Mercari Japan or Yahoo! Auctions? See all the platforms we buy from →
Get a quote. Paste the Suruga-ya link into our quote page at hobbeex.com, or tell us what you're after if you haven't found the listing yet — we'll tell you honestly whether we can get it and roughly what it'll cost.
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