Category: Tools & Compare

Last updated: July 12, 2026 — fee model verified July 2026. I live in Japan and buy through these services; the fee rules below are the ones the calculator actually runs, published in full so you can check my work.

Every proxy service quotes you a small number and charges you a large one. Buyee says “¥500.” ZenMarket says “¥500.” Neokyo says “¥350.” Those are the service fees — one line out of five or six, and rarely the line that decides which service is cheapest for you. The thing that actually decides it is your order shape: how many items, from how many sellers, from which platform, at what weight.

So instead of another comparison table that assumes an order you’re not placing, put your order in.

How to Read the Result

The calculator ranks the four services by estimated landed total — what leaves your bank account, not what the fee page advertises. Three of the cost lines (goods, international shipping, import charges) are identical no matter which proxy you pick, so they’re shown separately below the table. The column that actually separates the services is Fees, which bundles:

• the service fee (the advertised number, plus the platform surcharges most people miss),
• domestic shipping inside Japan — seller to the proxy’s warehouse, once per seller, and
• packing/repacking charges where the service bills them separately.

If two services land within a few hundred yen of each other, treat it as a tie and pick on the things a calculator can’t price: interface, English support quality, photo-inspection quality, how they handle a seller who ships you the wrong thing.

The Fee Model, in Full

This is the entire rule set the calculator uses, as of July 2026. If a service changes its pricing and this page still says July 2026, the page is stale — tell me.

Service	Service fee	Domestic shipping	Packing
Buyee	¥500 per order (raised from ¥300 in April 2026)	Estimated ¥500 per store order; ¥350 per Mercari/auction seller	Included
ZenMarket	¥500 per item — but ¥800/item on Mercari (since October 2025) and ¥800 per auction bid (since May 2026)	Estimated ¥500 per store order; ¥350 per Mercari/auction seller	Included
Neokyo	¥350 per item	¥0 — domestic shipping into the warehouse is included	¥500 + ¥150/kg above 2 kg
FROM JAPAN	~¥300 per item plan fee, capped at ¥800 for items from the same store, plus ~5% commission on auctions and Mercari	Estimated ¥500 per store order; ¥350 per Mercari/auction seller	Included

Two consequences fall straight out of that table, and they’re the reason the “cheapest proxy” question has no single answer:

Buyee’s per-order fee is a trap that’s also sometimes a gift. One ¥500 charge covers everything you buy from a single store — so a ten-item AmiAmi haul costs ¥500 in service fees at Buyee versus ¥5,000 at ZenMarket. But Mercari and Yahoo Auctions listings are each a separate seller, therefore each a separate order, so on a ten-item Mercari haul that same “per order” fee becomes ¥500 × 10. Buyee is built for big single-store hauls and punishes marketplace shopping.

ZenMarket’s and FROM JAPAN’s marketplace surcharges bite exactly where you don’t look. ZenMarket’s headline is ¥500/item; on Mercari it’s ¥800, and on auctions ¥800 per bid — lose an auction, bid again, pay again. FROM JAPAN’s ¥300 looks like the cheapest number on this page until the 5% commission lands on a ¥20,000 auction win and turns into ¥1,000 on its own.

Neokyo’s ¥350 includes domestic shipping, which on a multi-seller Mercari haul is worth more than the fee gap between any two services on this list. That’s why it tends to win the messy carts.

Fuller service-by-service notes, including support quality and the parts I don’t like about each: our 2026 proxy comparison.

What the Calculator Estimates (and Where It Will Be Wrong)

I’d rather you know the model’s weak points than trust it blindly.

• International shipping is a mid-range airmail/courier estimate by weight, not a quote. Real shipping depends on box dimensions (volumetric weight punishes boxed figures hard), the exact carrier, and the day — the carrier-by-carrier rate breakdown shows how far apart small packet, air parcel, EMS and courier actually sit. If your item is a boxed 1/7 scale figure, its shipped weight is usually 1.3–2× what the figure itself weighs. When in doubt, estimate high.
• US import charges are calculated as 10% of goods value — the Section 122 surcharge that has been in force since the $800 de minimis exemption ended. This expires July 24, 2026, and what replaces it is not settled. Anything you’re quoted for a package landing after that date is provisional; the live position is in our US tariff hub, which I update as it moves.
• EU/UK is shown as a flat ~20% VAT reference, which is a genuine simplification — rates and handling fees vary by country and carrier.
• Domestic shipping is a flat estimate (¥0–¥800 in reality, per parcel, decided by each seller). Free-shipping listings are the norm on Mercari, so this line often over-estimates.
• Excluded: payment processing fees (typically ~3–4% depending on method), optional insurance, photo services beyond the free allowance, and premium packaging options.

It’s a comparison tool, not a quote. The ranking is far more reliable than the absolute total.

Three Order Shapes, Three Different Winners

The fastest way to build intuition is to run these yourself:

One ¥8,000 figure from AmiAmi, 1.5 kg, to the US. Single store, single item. The service fees are nearly indistinguishable, and the winner is decided by a couple of hundred yen of domestic shipping and packing. Genuinely a coin flip — pick on interface.

Twelve ¥1,500 items from twelve different Mercari sellers, 4 kg, to the US. Now the model separates violently. Buyee bills its ¥500 per seller. ZenMarket bills ¥800 per item because it’s Mercari. Neokyo bills ¥350 per item with domestic shipping included, and wins by a wide margin. This is the cart shape where choosing wrong costs you real money.

A ¥40,000 auction win, single item, 2 kg. FROM JAPAN’s ¥300 plan fee looks great until the 5% commission adds ¥2,000. ZenMarket charges ¥800 per bid. Buyee’s flat ¥500 per order is suddenly the cheapest thing on the page. High-value single lots invert the usual ranking.

Notice that no service wins all three. Anyone who tells you one proxy is simply “the cheapest” is either not doing the math or getting paid.

Pitfalls the Calculator Can’t Price

• Consolidation is the real lever. Every proxy will hold your items and ship them in one box. Combining four separate 0.5 kg shipments into one 2 kg box roughly halves your shipping. The calculator assumes you consolidate; if you ship items one at a time, your real total will be far worse than any number here.
• Storage clocks are running. Free storage windows differ by service (commonly around 30–45 days), and waiting for a preorder to arrive so you can consolidate can quietly push you past them.
• Photo inspection isn’t free forever. Most services give you a few photos per parcel and charge beyond that. If you’re buying used or from Mercari, budget for it — the alternative is a bootleg you didn’t catch. See our Mercari red-flag guide.
• Not every proxy can buy from every store. Suruga-ya in particular has restricted proxy buyers, and access varies by service and changes without notice. Check the store list before you build a cart — details in the Suruga-ya breakdown.
• Currency. The calculator’s yen→USD conversion is a straight rate. Your card issuer will add a foreign transaction fee (commonly 0–3%), and PayPal’s spread is worse than your bank’s.

FAQ

Which proxy is cheapest? It depends on your cart shape, which is exactly why this page is a calculator rather than a verdict. Broadly: many items from one store → Buyee. Many items from many Mercari sellers → Neokyo. High-value single auction lot → Buyee or ZenMarket, but check both. Run your actual order.

Is the calculator free / does it track me? It’s a single self-contained script on this page. No account, no tracking, no data leaves your browser.

Why is the total higher than the proxy’s own checkout estimate? Because most proxy checkout screens quote you the first charge — items plus service fee plus domestic shipping — and bill international shipping and import duties later, once the parcel is packed. That second invoice is where people get surprised. This calculator shows both halves together.

Do these fees include US customs duty? For US destinations, yes: 10% of goods value, which most proxies now collect from you upfront as DDP so the carrier doesn’t stop your parcel. That figure is only valid while the current surcharge stands — see the tariff hub for the live position.

Can I use this for Suruga-ya’s English site or Mercari’s official overseas route? No — those aren’t proxies and don’t follow this fee model. The Suruga-ya comparison is here, and Mercari’s Global App gets its own head-to-head in Mercari’s Global App vs proxy services.

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Sources & methodology

Fee rules are taken from each service’s official pricing pages and change announcements, and cross-checked against real orders: Buyee fees, ZenMarket fees, Neokyo fees, and FROM JAPAN fees. International shipping estimates are derived from Japan Post’s published rate schedule and courier DDP lanes commonly offered by proxies. US import charges reflect the Section 122 surcharge in force as of July 2026; see our tariff hub for the underlying sources and the July 24 expiry. The full model is disclosed above and in the calculator’s source — if you find an error in it, I’d like to hear about it.

Last updated: July 12, 2026 — Fee data verified July 2026

I live in Japan and use these proxy services regularly — partly to buy things for friends overseas, partly to keep this site’s numbers honest. This comparison is based on the fee schedules on each company’s official pages as of July 2026, cross-checked against what users report on Trustpilot and collector forums.

One thing up front: “which proxy is best?” has no single answer, and anyone giving you one is selling something. Each of the big four is good at a different kind of order — Buyee for auctions, ZenMarket as the transparent all-rounder, Neokyo for cheap multi-item hauls, FROM JAPAN for a single mid-to-high-value store item. This guide is organized around that.

TL;DR: The Comparison Table

	Buyee	ZenMarket	Neokyo	FROM JAPAN
Service fee (as of July 2026)	¥500 per order (raised from ¥300 in April 2026)	¥500 per item; ¥800 for Mercari items and JDirectItems Auction bids	¥350 per item (raised from ¥250 in Sept 2025); domestic shipping included	¥300 per item plan fee (capped at ¥800 per order from the same store); 0% commission on major stores, 5% on auctions and “other site” requests
Trustpilot rating	3.6 (“Average”)	low-to-mid 4s	4.6	4.4
Best at	Yahoo! Auctions auto-bidding, widest site coverage	Transparent pricing, careful packing, multilingual support	Cheap multi-item hauls, free consolidation	Low fees on single store items ¥10,000+
Worst at	Packaging, shipping-quote accuracy, support	Mercari fees now steep (¥800/item)	Slower interface, smaller operation	Two-payment flow confuses beginners; 5% auction fee adds up
US tariffs	DDP; category-based prepaid duty since April 21, 2026	DDP for US since Dec 17, 2025 (courier only)	DDP via courier options	DDP via courier options
Free storage	30 days	~60 days	45 days	45 days

Fee sources: Buyee fees · ZenMarket fees · Neokyo fees · FROM JAPAN fees

What Changed in 2026 (and Why Old Guides Are Wrong)

If you’re reading a proxy comparison written before mid-2025, throw it out. The ground has shifted three times since then:

Buyee raised its fee 67% and got acquired. On April 1, 2026, Buyee’s per-order service fee went from ¥300 to ¥500. Its parent company BEENOS was also taken over by LY Corporation (the LINE/Yahoo! JAPAN group) — the tender offer completed in 2025, and Buyee is now effectively the in-house proxy for Yahoo! Auctions. Deeper auction integration is likely; the era of Buyee undercutting everyone on fees is over.

The US de minimis exemption is still gone, and everything moved to DDP. The $800 duty-free threshold for US imports was suspended in August 2025 and remains suspended as of July 2026. After the Supreme Court struck down the original IEEPA tariffs in February 2026, the administration replaced them with a roughly 10% across-the-board surcharge — so US buyers currently pay about 10% duty on Japanese parcels, down from ~15%. All four proxies responded by moving to DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): you prepay the duty at checkout instead of getting a surprise bill from the courier. Buyee charged a flat 15.5% surcharge from August 2025, then switched to category-based duty rates on April 21, 2026. ZenMarket introduced DDP for US orders on December 17, 2025, which requires courier shipping (UPS, FedEx, or ECMS). One caveat: the legal basis for the current 10% rate expires on July 24, 2026, and a replacement rate (a proposed 12.5%) is still being finalized — so treat any duty figure in this article as “current as of publication, check before you pay.”

Mercari launched its own global app. Mercari’s official cross-border app reached the US in June 2026, letting Americans buy from Mercari Japan directly with no proxy fee. For Mercari specifically, that’s now worth checking first — especially since ZenMarket raised its Mercari fee to ¥800 per item and Buyee’s ¥500-per-order fee hits hardest on cheap Mercari finds. Proxies still matter for Mercari when you want consolidation with items from other sites; we break the whole trade-off down in Mercari’s Global App vs proxy services.

Buyee: The Auction Specialist With an Asterisk

Fees (as of July 2026): ¥500 per order. Optional protection plans from ¥0 (Lite, no protection) to ¥500 (Standard/Insured). Consolidation costs extra. A ¥2,800 customs clearance commission applies to shipments over ¥200,000. US orders get category-based prepaid duty added at payment. Official fee page.

Buyee is the biggest proxy by a wide margin — over six million overseas users — and it covers more Japanese sites than anyone else. Its killer feature is the Yahoo! Auctions integration: real automatic sniping with a bid ceiling you set, which fires in the closing seconds. If you hunt auction-only items (out-of-print doujinshi, vintage toys, retro game lots), this tool alone justifies an account. With Buyee now inside the same corporate group as Yahoo! JAPAN, that integration is only going to deepen.

Now the asterisk. Buyee’s Trustpilot rating sits at 3.6 — “Average,” and the lowest of the four. The complaint patterns are consistent enough to call structural rather than bad luck: shipping quotes far above the initial estimate (oversized boxes inflate dimensional weight), packaging that collectors on MyFigureCollection have bluntly called atrocious, consolidation requests not executed as specified, and template-response support that makes claims exhausting to pursue. Most orders complete fine — but when something goes wrong, Buyee is where users report the least satisfying resolution.

Use Buyee when: you need auction sniping, or the item only exists on a site other proxies don’t cover. Skip it when: you’re consolidating a fragile multi-item haul and packaging quality matters.

ZenMarket: The Transparent All-Rounder

Fees (as of July 2026): ¥500 per item for most stores (Amazon Japan, Rakuten, and others). ¥800 per item for Mercari (since October 1, 2025) and ¥800 per bid on JDirectItems Auction (since May 1, 2026). Packing materials free; roughly 60 days of free storage. US orders ship DDP via courier. Official fee page.

ZenMarket, founded by a Ukrainian team and based in Osaka, has built its reputation on exactly the things Buyee gets criticized for: costs shown clearly before you commit, careful packing, photo services, tracking and insurance included on shipments, and responsive multilingual support. Its Trustpilot score sits in the low-to-mid 4s across more than 9,000 reviews. Their public shipping calculator is genuinely useful even if you end up ordering elsewhere.

The 2025–2026 fee changes dented its value proposition for secondhand hunting, though. At ¥800 per Mercari item, a five-item Mercari haul costs ¥4,000 in service fees alone — where Neokyo would charge ¥1,750. And ZenMarket isn’t immune to the standard proxy complaints; a minority of reviewers report the same shipping-estimate gaps and consolidation friction you see industry-wide. The difference is frequency and how disputes get handled, not immunity.

Use ZenMarket when: you want predictable, clearly itemized costs and solid packing across a mix of stores. Skip it when: your haul is mostly Mercari — Neokyo or Mercari’s own global app will beat it on fees.

Neokyo: The Budget Pick for Multi-Item Hauls

Fees (as of July 2026): ¥350 per item, which includes domestic shipping to their warehouse (raised from ¥250 in September 2025). Consolidation is free. Packing fee: ¥500 base, plus ¥150 per kilogram over 2 kg. 45 days of free storage. Official fee page.

Neokyo is the smallest operation of the four and the one most people haven’t heard of — which is odd, because it holds the highest Trustpilot rating of the group at 4.6, with roughly 83% five-star reviews out of about 10,000. The math is simple: the lowest per-item fee, domestic shipping folded into that fee rather than billed separately, and free consolidation. For the classic otaku order — eight small Mercari and Suruga-ya items, none over ¥2,000, all going into one box — nobody else comes close on fees. There’s also an active support Discord with over 7,000 members, which in practice answers questions faster than most proxies’ ticket systems.

The trade-offs are real but modest. The interface is more barebones than ZenMarket’s; some listings require manual Buy Requests rather than one-click checkout, which adds a processing step. It’s a smaller company, so peak seasons (post-Wonder Festival, holiday rushes) can slow purchasing and packing. And the ¥350 fee applies per item, so it scales linearly — on a single expensive item it’s fine, but it’s on cheap-item volume that Neokyo shines relative to Buyee’s per-order model plus consolidation charges.

Use Neokyo when: you’re buying many low-priced items and consolidating. Skip it when: you need hand-holding UI polish or same-day purchasing guarantees during peak weeks.

FROM JAPAN: The Cheapest Route for a Single Big Item

Fees (as of July 2026): a plan fee of ¥300 per item, capped at ¥800 per order from the same store. Commission is 0% for major stores (Rakuten, Amazon Japan, Yahoo! Shopping) and 5% for Yahoo! Auctions and requests from other sites. Payment happens in two steps: Charge 1 covers the item price; Charge 2 covers international shipping, plan fees, and everything else. Official fee page.

FROM JAPAN’s structure looks convoluted next to a flat fee, but for one specific — and common — scenario it’s the cheapest of the four: a single item in the ¥10,000–¥40,000 range from a major store. A ¥15,000 figure from Rakuten costs ¥300 in fees at FROM JAPAN versus ¥500 at Buyee or ZenMarket and ¥850 at Neokyo (fee plus packing). Small differences, but they compound if you order monthly. Its Trustpilot rating of 4.4 is solidly in the trusted tier, and it’s one of the few proxies with smooth Amazon Japan handling.

The weaknesses: the two-charge payment flow regularly confuses first-timers (“why am I paying twice?” is the most common support question), and the 5% commission on auctions means a ¥40,000 Yahoo! Auctions win costs ¥2,000 in commission on top of the plan fee — making it the most expensive of the four for exactly the auction use case where Buyee is strongest. There are also scattered reports of final shipping quotes landing well above initial estimates, a complaint no proxy fully escapes.

Use FROM JAPAN when: you’re buying one mid-to-high-value item from a store. Skip it when: you’re bidding on auctions or want a single combined payment.

What You’d Actually Pay: Three Scenarios

These are rough estimates for a US buyer, calculated July 2026. Assumptions: courier/ECMS shipping at typical published rates for the stated weight, US duty estimated at a flat 10% of item value, and no optional services. Actual shipping depends on box dimensions (this is where proxies differ most in practice — a badly packed box can cost more than any fee difference), and duty rates may change after July 24, 2026. Exchange reference: roughly ¥161 = US$1. If your cart doesn’t look like any of these three, run your own numbers through our proxy fee calculator, which prices all four services against the order shape you actually have.

Scenario 1: ¥5,000 haul — four small Mercari items, consolidated, ~1 kg (est. shipping ¥3,000)

	Service fees	Est. shipping	Est. US duty (10%)	Est. total
Neokyo	¥1,900 (4 × ¥350 + ¥500 packing)	¥3,000	¥500	~¥10,400 (≈$65)
FROM JAPAN	~¥1,450 (4 × ¥300 + 5%)	¥3,000	¥500	~¥9,950 (≈$62)*
Buyee	~¥2,500 (4 × ¥500 + consolidation)	¥3,000	¥500	~¥11,000 (≈$68)
ZenMarket	¥3,200 (4 × ¥800, Mercari rate)	¥3,000	¥500	~¥11,700 (≈$73)

*FROM JAPAN’s on-paper fees are low here, but its shipping quotes for consolidated parcels trend higher in user reports; treat Neokyo as the safer budget pick for this pattern.

Scenario 2: ¥15,000 single figure from Rakuten, ~1.5 kg (est. shipping ¥4,000)

	Service fees	Est. shipping	Est. US duty (10%)	Est. total
FROM JAPAN	¥300	¥4,000	¥1,500	~¥20,800 (≈$129)
Buyee	¥500	¥4,000	¥1,500	~¥21,000 (≈$130)
ZenMarket	¥500	¥4,000	¥1,500	~¥21,000 (≈$130)
Neokyo	¥850 (¥350 + ¥500 packing)	¥4,000	¥1,500	~¥21,350 (≈$133)

At this price point the fee gap is noise — a few hundred yen on a ¥21,000 order. Choose on packaging reputation and quote accuracy, not fees.

Scenario 3: ¥40,000 Yahoo! Auctions grail, ~2 kg (est. shipping ¥5,000)

	Service fees	Est. shipping	Est. US duty (10%)	Est. total
Buyee	¥500 (Lite plan)	¥5,000	¥4,000	~¥49,500 (≈$307)
ZenMarket	¥800 (auction-bid rate)	¥5,000	¥4,000	~¥49,800 (≈$309)
Neokyo	¥850 (¥350 + packing)	¥5,000	¥4,000	~¥49,850 (≈$310)
FROM JAPAN	¥2,300 (¥300 + 5% commission)	¥5,000	¥4,000	~¥51,300 (≈$319)

Buyee wins on paper and has the best sniping tool — auctions are its home turf. The counterweight: for a ¥40,000 fragile grail, Buyee’s packaging track record is the risk you’re pricing in. Some collectors deliberately pay ZenMarket’s extra ¥300 for that reason. That’s a defensible trade.

The bigger takeaway from all three tables: fees are the smallest line item. Shipping plus the ~10% US duty is typically 40–100% of the item price on small orders. Any proxy choice matters less than consolidating well and picking the right shipping method out of Japan.

So Which One Should You Use?

• Many cheap items (under ~¥3,000 each), consolidated: Neokyo first, ZenMarket if your haul isn’t Mercari-heavy or if you want the slicker interface. For Mercari-only US purchases, check the Mercari global app before paying any proxy fee.
• One mid-to-high-value store item (¥10,000+): FROM JAPAN on fees; ZenMarket if you’d rather pay a few hundred yen more for the simplest checkout flow.
• Yahoo! Auctions bidding: Buyee, for the auto-bid sniper. Set your maximum, walk away, and request careful packing explicitly — in the packing instructions, not just hoping.
• Fragile grails where packaging is everything: ZenMarket or FROM JAPAN over Buyee, even when Buyee is nominally cheaper.
• First proxy order ever, and you just want it to go smoothly: ZenMarket. It’s not the cheapest at anything, but every cost is visible before you commit, which is the thing beginners actually need.

There’s no loyalty prize in this game. Plenty of experienced buyers keep two or three accounts and route each order to whichever service fits it. That’s the correct strategy, not indecision.

FAQ

Do I still pay US customs duties on top of these fees?
Yes, but you now prepay them. Since the US de minimis exemption was suspended (August 2025, still in effect July 2026), all four proxies ship to the US on DDP terms — duty (currently about 10% of item value) is added to your proxy invoice, and nothing extra is collected at your door. Note the current rate’s legal basis expires July 24, 2026, and a ~12.5% replacement has been proposed; check the proxy’s checkout figure rather than assuming.

Why is the shipping quote so different from the final shipping cost?
Initial quotes are based on estimated weight and box size; the final cost uses the actual packed dimensions. Couriers charge by dimensional weight, so a loosely packed large box costs far more than the same items packed tight. This gap is the single most common complaint across every proxy — most severe in Buyee reviews, but nobody is exempt. Mitigation: consolidate, request compact packing in writing, and don’t ship until everything has arrived at the warehouse.

Is Buyee’s low Trustpilot score a reason to avoid it entirely?
No — 3.6 means most orders complete fine, and its auction tooling has no real equal. It’s a reason to use Buyee for what it’s uniquely good at (auction sniping, rare-site coverage) and route fragile or consolidation-heavy orders to services with stronger packing reputations.

Can’t I just buy from Mercari Japan directly now?
If you’re in the US: partially, yes. Mercari’s global app launched there in June 2026 with no proxy service fee. It covers Mercari only, though — no Yahoo! Auctions, Suruga-ya, AmiAmi pre-owned, or store exclusives — and you can’t consolidate Mercari finds with items from other sites. Proxies remain the answer for mixed hauls. Our Global App vs proxy breakdown covers where each one wins.

Which service ships fastest?
Speed is mostly set by the shipping method, not the proxy. Where they differ is processing time: ZenMarket and Buyee purchase quickly; Neokyo can lag a day or two in peak seasons; FROM JAPAN adds a beat if you’re slow to pay Charge 2.

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Fees, duty rates, and platform policies in this article were verified against official sources in July 2026 but change frequently — 2025–2026 saw three major fee revisions across these four services alone. Always confirm on the linked official fee pages before committing to a large order.

Last updated: July 12, 2026 — verified against Mercari’s official announcements and each proxy’s official fee page. I live in Japan, use Mercari Japan constantly, and route packages overseas for friends through proxies most months. This article is about the one question every overseas Mercari buyer is now asking: now that Mercari has its own international app, is the proxy era over?

Short answer: no, but the map has changed, and it changed on June 17, 2026, when Mercari launched the Global App in the United States — its third market after Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The most useful thing I can tell you up front is what the Global App actually is, because almost every English write-up gets this wrong. It is not “Mercari Japan shipping to you.” It is a proxy service operated by Mercari itself. Understanding that one fact tells you almost everything about when it wins.

The Answer Up Front

• Buying only from Mercari Japan, and you’re in the US? Start with the Global App. There is no third-party service fee, duties are quoted at checkout via Zonos, and Mercari inspects every item before it ships. On a pure-Mercari haul it is very likely the cheapest and simplest route.
• Buying from Mercari plus anywhere else (Yahoo! Auctions, Mandarake, AmiAmi, Suruga-ya’s own site, Rakuten)? Proxy, no contest. The Global App cannot put a Yahoo! Auctions win and a Mercari figure in the same box. Consolidation is still the proxies’ moat.
• Not in the US, Taiwan, or Hong Kong? The Global App doesn’t exist for you yet. Mercari’s stated target is 50+ countries and regions by 2028. Until then: proxy.
• Buying something where condition is contested — a used figure with a vague description, a graded-card-adjacent listing, anything you suspect is a bootleg? Proxy. You can pay ZenMarket ¥500 to photograph the item in the warehouse and cancel before it crosses the ocean. Mercari’s inspection is Mercari’s inspection; you don’t get to look first.
• Auction sniping, pre-owned store stock, doujinshi from Mandarake? Not Mercari’s problem. See our proxy comparison.

The honest caveat, stated once and loudly: Mercari has not published a buyer-facing fee schedule or international shipping rate card for the Global App. Everything below about proxy costs is sourced from official fee pages. Everything about the Global App’s price is either from Mercari’s own claim (it is cheaper than going through a proxy) or from what you see at checkout in the app. Nobody should tell you they’ve modeled the Global App’s total cost to the yen. I can’t, so I won’t.

What the Global App Actually Is

Mercari Japan does not ship overseas. It never has. What it has instead is an official cross-border sales program, documented in Mercari’s Japanese help center, and the mechanism is spelled out in one sentence:

「メルカリ、またはメルカリと公式連携した越境EC事業者が、メルカリを利用できない海外在住のお客さまからの購入依頼を受け、メルカリの出品者から商品を購入のうえ、海外に発送を行うサービスです。」

Translated: Mercari, or a cross-border e-commerce operator officially partnered with Mercari, receives a purchase request from an overseas customer who cannot use Mercari, buys the item from the Mercari seller, and ships it overseas.

That is the definition of a proxy service. The Japanese seller ships to a domestic Japanese address. Somebody in Japan receives it, checks it, repacks it, and exports it. The only question is who that somebody is.

Mercari’s help page lists its own official account (メルカリ海外取引サポート) alongside more than 40 partnered proxy operators — Buyee, ZenMarket, and FROM JAPAN among them. The Global App is Mercari cutting out the middleman by becoming the middleman. Its structural advantage is that it owns the marketplace, so it can skip the service fee a third party has to charge. Its structural limitation is that it only owns one marketplace.

Status Check: What’s Real as of July 12, 2026

	Status
Launch: Taiwan & Hong Kong	September 30, 2025 (announcement)
Launch: United States	June 17, 2026 (announcement)
Everywhere else	Not yet. Target: 50+ countries/regions by 2028, 100+ long term
What you can buy	Listings from Mercari Japan and Mercari Shops — plus Suruga-ya inventory, which Mercari began integrating in December 2025
Can you sell?	No. The Global App is buy-only for overseas users; US sellers get no international shipping route
Inspection	Mercari inspects every item in a Japanese warehouse before international dispatch
Damage/loss cover	Free compensation on all items, per Mercari’s launch release
Duties	Landed cost (duty + tax + fees) quoted at checkout via Zonos
Consolidation	Multiple purchases by the same buyer are consolidated into one parcel to cut shipping — announced as policy; scope inside the US app is not documented
Coming	Optional paid authentication (“Safe Appraisal”), auction-style listings, pre-orders

The launch promo — 30% off a first purchase (max $25), 25% off trading cards (max $20), 20% off sitewide (max $15) — ended July 5, 2026. If you priced the app during launch week and it looked unbeatable, re-price it. That was a coupon, not a fee structure.

Note the Suruga-ya line, because it’s a bigger deal than it sounds: it means some Suruga-ya stock is now reachable through the Global App without touching suruga-ya.com’s 40% English-site markup. It is not the full Suruga-ya catalog, and I would not assume parity with suruga-ya.jp.

The Proxy Route: What Mercari Actually Costs Through Each Service

These are the numbers that are published, verified, and specific to Mercari — which matters, because two of the four charge a Mercari-specific rate that differs from their headline fee.

Service	Fee on a Mercari purchase (July 2026)	Structure
Buyee	¥500 per order (raised from ¥300 on April 1, 2026)	Per order — cheap on big multi-item hauls, brutal on one ¥800 keychain
ZenMarket	¥800 per Mercari item (since October 1, 2025); ¥500 per Mercari Shops item	Per item — the most expensive Mercari route of the four
Neokyo	¥350 per item + ¥500 packing (under 2 kg; +¥150/kg over)	Per item, domestic shipping included in the fee
FROM JAPAN	¥300 per item plan fee, capped at ¥800 per order from the same store	Per item with a cap; two-stage payment

Sources: Buyee fees, ZenMarket fees, Neokyo fees, FROM JAPAN fees. To see what these fees do to your haul rather than a hypothetical one, put it through our proxy fee calculator — it models the Mercari-specific rates in this table.

Two things fall out of that table immediately.

ZenMarket has priced itself out of Mercari. A five-item Mercari haul costs ¥4,000 in service fees at ZenMarket versus ¥2,250 at Neokyo (5 × ¥350 + ¥500 packing) and ¥500 at Buyee. ZenMarket remains an excellent service — it’s my default for mixed hauls from stores — but for Mercari specifically, it is now the wrong tool.

The Global App’s advantage is exactly one line of that table. It removes ¥350–¥800 per item. On a ¥25,000 figure, that is noise. On six ¥900 gachapon, it is the whole decision. Which means the Global App’s real competition is Buyee’s flat ¥500-per-order — and against that, Mercari’s edge on fees alone is thin. Where it isn’t thin is everything the proxy adds on top of the fee: packing charges, consolidation charges, and the shipping-quote gap.

One unverified item, flagged honestly: FROM JAPAN charges 0% commission on major stores and 5% on auctions and “other site” requests. Which bucket Mercari falls into is not stated unambiguously on its fee page, and I could not load the page to confirm on July 12 (it returned 403 to automated requests). If you’re routing a large Mercari order through FROM JAPAN, check whether the 5% applies before you commit — on a ¥40,000 item that’s ¥2,000.

Tariffs: This One’s a Wash, and That’s the Point

US buyers pay duty either way. The $800 de minimis exemption has been suspended since August 29, 2025 and is still suspended; the current effective rate on most anime merch and TCG from Japan is about 10% (the Section 122 surcharge imposed in February 2026). Full detail in our US tariff guide.

What differs is plumbing, not price:

• Global App: Zonos calculates the landed cost and shows it at checkout. Duty prepaid, no courier bill at the door.
• Proxies: all four moved to DDP (delivered duty paid) — Buyee switched from a flat 15.5% surcharge to category-based rates on April 21, 2026; ZenMarket added US DDP on December 17, 2025 (courier shipping required).

Both routes prepay. Neither lets you dodge it. Both are exposed to the same July 24, 2026 cliff: the Section 122 surcharge’s 150-day statutory clock runs out that day, and the proposed replacement (a 12.5% Section 301 duty) is not final. Do not treat a duty quote you saw in June as valid in August — on either route.

The one asymmetry worth knowing: duty is charged on declared value. A proxy declares what you paid the Japanese seller. So does Mercari. Neither route inflates the declared price the way Suruga-ya’s English site does, so this genuinely cancels out.

Where the Proxy Still Wins (and It’s Not Close)

1. Consolidation across sites

This is the whole ballgame. A typical otaku haul is not four Mercari items. It’s a Mercari figure, a Yahoo! Auctions doujin lot, an AmiAmi pre-owned box, and a Suruga-ya game — four sites, one box, one shipping charge. The Global App consolidates Mercari purchases. It cannot touch Yahoo! Auctions, Mandarake, Rakuten, or AmiAmi.

Shipping and duty are 40–100% of item value on small international orders. Splitting one 3 kg box into three 1 kg boxes costs far more than any service fee you saved. If your haul is cross-site, the proxy wins before you’ve even compared fees.

2. Seeing the item before it leaves Japan

Proxies let you buy an inspection. ZenMarket charges ¥500 per item to photograph an item in the warehouse and send you three photos, and you can cancel or complain before it ships. Buyee and Neokyo offer equivalents.

The Global App inspects every item — for free, and Mercari’s inspection is real, done in its own Japanese warehouse. But it is Mercari’s eyes, against Mercari’s criteria, and Mercari has not published what a failed inspection looks like or how a dispute resolves. For a ¥2,000 prize figure, fine. For a ¥60,000 grail or anything where you’re worried about a bootleg, “trust our warehouse” and “here are three photos, your call” are not the same product. The second one is what proxies sell, and it’s worth ¥500.

3. Everything that isn’t Mercari

Yahoo! Auctions sniping. Mandarake’s doujinshi and vintage stock. Suruga-ya’s full Japanese catalog. AmiAmi pre-owned. Rakuten and Amazon Japan store exclusives. None of it is in the Global App, and Mercari has given no indication it intends to become a general-purpose importer. Roughly 70% of Mercari’s cross-border value already comes from hobby and entertainment categories — the company is doubling down on Mercari’s own inventory, not on becoming Buyee.

4. You don’t live in the US, Taiwan, or Hong Kong

Then this article is academic and you should go read the proxy comparison. Europeans, Australians, Canadians, Southeast Asia: nothing has changed for you yet.

Pitfalls

The “no proxy fee” headline hides shipping. Mercari says the Global App is cheaper than routing through a third-party proxy. That’s plausible and probably true on fee lines. But shipping is the biggest number on any Japan parcel — see what shipping from Japan actually costs by weight and method — and Mercari has not published its international rate card. Check the total at checkout against a proxy’s shipping calculator before you assume. If your app total beats the calculator, order in the app. If not, don’t.

Coupon-week pricing is not pricing. The 30%/25%/20% launch coupons expired July 5, 2026. Any Reddit thread or YouTube comparison filmed in late June is describing a promotion, not the service.

Individual Mercari sellers are still individual Mercari sellers. Mercari’s inspection catches damage in transit and gross misdescription. It does not turn a C2C marketplace into a graded storefront. Bootleg figures, “used – like new” that means used, missing box inserts — all still your problem. Our Mercari bootleg red flags guide applies identically on both routes.

Cancellations happen on both routes. Every Mercari listing is a single item. Between your click and the buyer’s click (yours or the proxy’s), it can be gone. Proxies add a delay; Mercari’s own route is faster here, and that is a genuine, underrated advantage on hot listings.

Returns and disputes are the biggest unknown. Mercari promises free compensation for damage or loss in transit. What it has not published is how a “wrong item” or “not as described” claim is adjudicated across a border, or whether you can return at all. Until that’s documented, I’d cap what I risk in the app until I’ve had a small order go through cleanly.

FAQ

Is the Mercari Global App the same as the Mercari US app?
No. Mercari US is a separate American marketplace with American sellers. The Global App is a distinct app that surfaces Japanese Mercari and Mercari Shops listings to overseas buyers. Mercari’s own launch release states you can buy from Mercari Japan through it “without having to go through a third-party proxy crossborder service.”

Does the Global App have the entire Mercari Japan catalog?
Mercari says the app opens access to Mercari and Mercari Shops in Japan — a marketplace with 4 billion cumulative listings — plus Suruga-ya stock. What it has not published is a list of excluded categories or items, and Japanese sellers require no special setup for cross-border sales, which suggests broad coverage. Assume broad, verify by searching for your specific item, and don’t assume 100%.

Is Buyee dead now?
Absolutely not. Buyee is Mercari’s longest-standing official cross-border partner and remains the best tool for Yahoo! Auctions and for the widest site coverage — and its ¥500 per order fee is still the cheapest way to move a large multi-item Mercari haul through a third party. Buyee’s problem is packaging quality, not relevance.

Which proxy is best for Mercari specifically in 2026?
Neokyo (¥350/item + ¥500 packing) for many cheap items; Buyee (¥500/order) if the haul is big enough that per-order beats per-item; not ZenMarket, whose ¥800/item Mercari rate is the outlier. Full reasoning in the proxy comparison.

Will the Global App come to the EU / UK / Australia?
Mercari’s stated goal is 50+ countries and regions by 2028 and 100+ long-term. No dates have been announced for any specific market beyond the US, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Treat any specific EU launch date you see online as speculation until Mercari says so.

Should I wait for the Global App instead of using a proxy?
If you’re in the US and buying Mercari-only, don’t wait — it’s live, try a small order. If you’re anywhere else, waiting means not buying, and Mercari has given no timeline. Use a proxy.

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Sources & methodology

Global App facts are from Mercari’s official press releases: the US launch (June 17, 2026) and the cross-border strategy announcement (September 30, 2025), plus Mercari’s Japanese help page on the official cross-border sales program (source of the quoted definition and the list of 40+ partnered proxy operators). Duty handling via Zonos is from the Zonos–Mercari partnership release; launch-coupon terms, the Suruga-ya inventory integration, and the “no US seller route” limitation are from Value Added Resource, Digital Commerce 360 and Impress Watch. Proxy fees are from each company’s official fee page: Buyee, ZenMarket (Mercari rate confirmed by ZenMarket’s own October 2025 fee-change notice), Neokyo, FROM JAPAN. Tariff status is carried over from our US tariff guide, sourced there to CBP and carrier documents.

Not verified, and stated as such above: Mercari has published no buyer-facing service-fee schedule or international shipping rate card for the Global App, no excluded-category list, and no cross-border returns/dispute policy. FROM JAPAN’s Mercari commission bucket (0% vs 5%) could not be confirmed on July 12, 2026. Anyone giving you a to-the-yen total for the Global App is guessing. Check your checkout screen — that’s the only authoritative number, and it’s the one you’ll pay.