New thread to show rinkya our niche

[ryan7olson7]

OK, I'M NEW HERE, but seriously there is enough yahoo.jp power buyer and guys like me that are good for 1 guitar a month, we should talk to heather/elaine at rinkya and get a deal/ good shipping rates for us MLP'RS

what do you guys think??? i mean, several of us are waiting for guitars, and after the fact we get "sorry, japan is on holiday" for a week. i paid for mine in the 24th. i am paying top dollar for the service. i should get my guitar in a prompt manner regardless of holidays. whatever, i mean we pay huge cash for the priveledge of proxy auctions.. and that's ok, but we are not anime or cel or junk buyers, we are buying and shipping functional art and it should be treated as such... just my drunk rant sorry.... i still think we need a special rinkya/kuboten/........ discount.....

[JamesT]

+1 Ryan. I would think that in exchange for more referrals and more business they would be willing to give us a discount and or shipping privileges. Or something

[JDB]

I must admit first looking at the fee's they charge I was put off but I really want a greco eg like the one Udo had and James has just acquired, and an RLG-50 like Wulfs 1984 solid top, so I'm going top have to bite the bullet and get a rinkya account.
Like me there are many more, so don't expect anything from Rinkya for nothing.
Not much choice to go elsewhere

Exept for www.Wulfya.com .

[BrazenPicker]

Originally Posted by ryan7olson7

we get "sorry, japan is on holiday" for a week.

Funny, I got that today as well, after having several emails/shipping request go unanswered for more than a week now.

What would take the cake is if they now charge me the 25% surcharge, which their website says applies if an item sits in the warehouse for more than 2 months. Next week when they return from their holiday it will be more than 2 months for one of my guitars. A month ago I already asked them to ship the two guitars I had in their warehouse but they made a mistake and sent me just one. At the time I was not too bothered about it since I was just leaving for a holiday and I had another guitar coming in as well, but I won't be a happy customer if they now have the gall to charge me late fees.

It doesn't bother me too much that they take a holiday, but the least they could do is install an automated reply to their email system.

Another thing to be careful of is that the fees may already have gone up. On their website, they mention a discount that applies till 31/12/2010, and it's to be seen if it will be extended.

[wkcchampion]

Nice thread! keep it posted

[UITA]

It ain't going to happen, why should it? People will use them regardless. At one point I was getting around 20 a month from them. It's their attitude (my experience) to shipping that made me stop using them (I informed them of other Ebay sellers and their charges for EMS).

Kick up enough fuss and they may have a discount shipping day!!!!!

[slapshot]

Originally Posted by BrazenPicker

Another thing to be careful of is that the fees may already have gone up. On their website, they mention a discount that applies till 31/12/2010, and it's to be seen if it will be extended.

I hope that applies to all orders made,completed & paid for before 31/12.

I find it a little insulting that they say "Japan" is on holidays for a week when really it's just them.

[Udonitron]

Originally Posted by BrazenPicker

Another thing to be careful of is that the fees may already have gone up. On their website, they mention a discount that applies till 31/12/2010, and it's to be seen if it will be extended.

!!?!
Heather told me to wait till after Christmas as postal hired help during the rush can destroy guitars.
Now if I go to check out and shipping commissions have gone up, that would be just a little bit too fishy.
They should be going down honestly.
I really dig Heather & her brother but I would lose respect business wise if they pulled that!

[ryan7olson7]

Originally Posted by Udonitron

!!?!
Heather told me to wait till after Christmas as postal hired help during the rush can destroy guitars.
Now if I go to check out and shipping commissions have gone up, that would be just a little bit too fishy.
They should be going down honestly.
I really dig Heather & her brother but I would lose respect business wise if they pulled that!

yeah i am going to email the help desk and see if my guitar qualifies for the discount. i paid for it on the 24th, and requested shipping on the 29th. and requested it several times since with no reply.

[UITA]

This is a shame, I started using Rinkya some years ago and they were an amazing company to deal with. They listened and improved their packing no end, even shipping 3guitars at a time to me. Shame the good service wore off.

[vintageJIM]

oddly enough, I get an email from Elaine this afternoon, concerning a small charge for excess shipping costs.

I email Elaine back & let her know that as soon as I receive my shipping invoice I will gladly pay any balances I may have.

She replied back that shipping is delayed

I emailed Elaine back to find out about the shipping delay & she opened a 'help' ticket for me, for customer service.

A few minutes later I get a reply from CS, posted below.


"Hi ^_^
Thank you for your mail!
New Year's is a national holiday in Japan, shipping will resume Jan 10th.
Rinkya - Ship Your Japan Items Worldwide
We apologize for the delay!
Thank you ^_^
Laurel
Rinkya"


so, there you have it folks ...................................

[JamesT]

Exactly. It's that kind of stuff that makes me furious. I'm glad they sent Rich the same form email that they sent me.

After I get these three guitars, I'm done with Rinkya. That was certainly not a great experience.

[vintageJIM]

I just reviewed my purchase history since I've been using RinkYa for the last 15 months & here's what I came up with


11 = total purchases

709000 yen = total paid

64455 yen = average per purchase


that is auction payments only; does not include any fees, commissions, shipping, Customs duties

Maybe it's time to give it a rest ...............

[JamesT]

Here is Laurel's response back to me voicing my frustration.

"Hi James,

Thank you for your reply and we apologize for the disappointment!
Our shipping is only delayed for a longer period during holidays in Japan- New Year's and Golden Week.
Otherwise, we ship 6 days a week, including fulfilling same day requests from our users if necessary.
We apologize for the disappointment, our notification of the delay is on the ship request form:
Rinkya - Ship Your Japan Items Worldwide
We regret that your first purchases were during one of our two periods that we are unable to ship, but we can assure you we otherwise ship very quickly and have ten years of experience shipping guitars safely internationally.
Please contact me if you have anymore concerns or questions.
Thank you ^_^
Laurel
Rinkya"

That seals the deal for me. That notice on the ship request page? It certainly wasn't there the previous two times I looked and before I (and I'm sure others) started sending emails. So clearly they just put that notice up there and didn't have the decency to tell me that they made a mistake by not posting it and they had rectified it. Instead, the implication is that I missed this when I requested shipping twice on December 26th and December 28th.

Great service....yeesh. I'm done with them.

[slapshot]

6 days a week shipping?
er ...
If we receive your ship request on any:
Friday,Saturday, Sunday, Monday (JP time)
Your item will be packed up on:Tuesday (JP time)
Your item will be sent on the next:Friday(JP time)

sorry that does not equal shipping 6 days a week.At least not anywhere in my 15 year career in shipping & distribution.
ship 6 days a week should mean your order is packed & shipped the same day you pay or at the maximum the day after if you pay after a cutoff time (say 3pm).

yeah and I didn't get that shipping notice when I made my request.
granted I made my requests last year as soon as they showed up in the rinkya warehouse so can't say if they just added it.

[UITA]

Originally Posted by JamesT

have ten years of experience shipping guitars safely internationally.

Yeah tell that to the 6 guitars that came to me with snapped headstocks.....uh guitars don't have ears, scratch that. Oh and they shipped two of my guitars to someone in another part of the country, luckily it was Barburny!!!! (they didn't know that).

[Udonitron]

Well I have been told numerous times throughout the year that it was a national holiday and shipping would be delayed for days or a week etc.
I didn't think much of it but I did happen to ask my friend in Japan about the week holidays in the past and she said they only got a day for most of the supposed week ventures.
Perhaps it is a way for them to catch up on the backlog of orders?
They need to be forthright and honest with their customers however 100% otheriwse bad word of mouth travels like a disease.

[holt1]

I have been pretty happy with the service up to this point but the last two guitars the shipping totalled with the in japan shipping to the warehouse and then EMS to texas over 400.00. Not sure I can afford any of this from here on out. I have bought a slew of guitars over the last year also. I have these two I am shipping and another two to ship. I think the other two can take the slow boat from japan!

[Udonitron]

Yeah same...last 2 LP's I had shipped totaled $335US plus the local shipping fees and commission, it adds up!
I did have Scott do a killer packing job on 3 Greco Strats plus a hefty Wah/Fuzz pedal and it cost me $230 via FedEx as I had him take the necks off for me.
He was super helpful and worked with me to get the cost down.
On LP's however...they are heavy and a set neck so the boxes are BIG and add about 3 pounds to the total.
25% commission on smaller light items is not a huge deal but the big heavy stuff tacks on an additional $60 or so to the total
That plus the $40 commission sale, $15 local fees, and then an additional $15 in local shipping fees that always get added on hurts.
All that for a sight unseen guitar with 3 little photos...it is a big risk for sure.

I suppose it is a safer investment to buy from an eBay seller with loads of pics and protection albeit a price increase but really not that much after you add in all the fees with 3rd party Japanese auction sites.

[holt1]

Yeah, the 25% adds up quick as the money goes up. They do a great job of packing though. One of those is a LPC in a hardshell case so I am sure it's pretty hefty in the weight department. Still, all the fee's add up to a point where it's hard to justify buying anymore almost.

[Udonitron]

Yeah most single LP's in a hard case run about $225US to ship
You end up having to add that on the the total value of the guitar when it comes time to sell it if you do.
If people know what you paid prior to fees they think you are being greedy when really you are just breaking even LOL

[holt1]

Originally Posted by Udonitron

Yeah most single LP's in a hard case run about $225US to ship
You end up having to add that on the the total value of the guitar when it comes time to sell it if you do.
If people know what you paid prior to fees they think you are being greedy when really you are just breaking even LOL

Yeah I know! It makes no sense really. If you have a business where people walk in and see it on the wall no one really even blinks an eye that you are going to make a profit for what you sell. If you do it online with a website or ebay store or on ebay and make a profit people howl to the moon! People in business have been buying as close to wholesale as possible and selling for a profit at retail as much as possible since the beginning of time. It's the way it works. But if you hang out on a forum then somehow your f**king someone somehow. I even have a business license and pay state and federal tax. Plus I try to list as close to what I can find as possible to what it is and the condition. I have "ate" more money on some deals than I ever care to admit because something was missed and I was threatened with neg feedback so I went ahead and lost hundreds of dollars because I knew that ebay always sides with the complaint no matter how valid. I sell guitars from time to time so I can keep playing and making music, records, etc. Otherwise I have to go get a regular job and quit doing what I came to austin to do. Albeit I have two to three jobs along with two or three bands at a time and am constantly broke. And I do mean constantly! I am in no way lining my pockets with cash from selling these. Most of the time i am lucky if I make over 100.00 dollars on a sale.

[Udonitron]

Yeah perhaps Rinkya should charge a month to month membership?
Like Costco...they make a killing on membership fees, not the sale of goods as they are just above their own cost.
As an example, Rinkya could charge a $350 fee for a year or $50 per month if you want to go month to month.
Some might utilize it fully while others buy one or two guitars in a year which equals good profit for them.
Either that or slightly raise their commission on sales and charge actual shipping costs plus $25 for packing or something similar?

[vintageJIM]

............. I know what; how 'bout if they just ship the God damn thing when you ask for it ........... ..........

[JamesT]

Originally Posted by vintagejim

............. I know what; how 'bout if they just ship the god damn thing when you ask for it ........... ..........

+1

[BrazenPicker]

OK, to be a counterweight here in case someone googles "rinkya" and this is the first he reads about them, I've been satisfied with the service for the most part, but the "unbundling" of their fees is BS. I think they made a decision that instead of charging the real fee at the beginning, they will post a relatively small starter fee (the 40 USD up to 100k Yen), and then make extra profit via all the other surcharges. Granted, there may be some unpredictable expenses charged by the seller, but others like the crappy Yen to USD exchange rate and 25% add on to shipping is purely a stealth fee. It's the same BS airlines do by charging you extra for a headphone or check-in luggage. It will rope people in, but then the result is pissed off customers like what we're seeing here.

As to the shipping delays, to be honest, I'm not too bothered about that, more so since I have 3 guitars waiting to be shipped and (for the first time) decided to go via sea, but they should have communicated that better. They could even have flashed that on the screen at the time of bidding, so people knew what they were in for.

Last point, the fee rise (end of "discount"), I don't think that applies to shipping anyway. The discount I was talking about was on the purchase, so as long as you already paid for the purchase, you should be fine. I highly doubt also that they would screw around with their customers to that extent, although everything's possible.

[vintageJIM]

I don't particularly mind the xtra fees, per se but when I pay for any service, RinkYa included, I want my God damn items shipped when I request it.

RinkYa is just like any other business service; people pay for the service, period.

I am not paying these fees for people to sit on their asses for a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek looooooooooooooong holiday, when I want an item shipped when requested ...........................

[wulfman]

Just a question about this. Do you all pay Rinkya using credit cards? If that is the case wouldn't they have to make their 2% (or whatever it is) merchant CC charge fee up somewhere? Or do they add that on top of your payment as well?
I guess you could say that is figured into the exchange rate they use.

Ok, back to the sidelines now.

[JamesT]

Originally Posted by wulfman

Just a question about this. Do you all pay Rinkya using credit cards? If that is the case wouldn't they have to make their 2% (or whatever it is) merchant CC charge fee up somewhere? Or do they add that on top of your payment as well?
I guess you could say that is figured into the exchange rate they use.

Ok, back to the sidelines now.

I'm sure they try to recoup the CC processing or Paypal fees as part of their fee structure. I don't mind that either. I understand that the service costs money and honestly, that is just fine. But delays in shipping need to be properly communicated. What if someone needed an item to arrive by a certain time? It's easy for most of us who have several guitars to consider it a small inconvenience when an item is delayed in shipping, but they ship lots of other items too.

I had three great experiences with Japan Auction Center and thought I would try Rinkya to compare. I'm sorry I did.

[ryan7olson7]

Originally Posted by vintageJIM

I don't particularly mind the xtra fees, per se but when I pay for any service, RinkYa included, I want my God damn items shipped when I request it.

RinkYa is just like any other business service; people pay for the service, period.

I am not paying these fees for people to sit on their asses for a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek looooooooooooooong holiday, when I want an item shipped when requested ...........................

exactly. what we are paying for is service, and i can understand if they need to shut down for a week, but jesus, i was under the impression i would be getting my guitar this week, now it looks like it wont even get shipped until then end of next week if i am to base my estimate on their shipping calendar(request by tuesday shipped friday?)

i think from now on, i will just buy on ebay, unless i'm looking for something real rare. it doesn't really cost that much more, the pictures are better, and you have recourse if the damn thing gets broken.