Expensive and frustrating
My first issue was poor communication on my preorders from a big online shop in Japan. My preorder was delayed multiple times and I had to contact support myself just to get updates. Out of all the proxies I’ve used Zen Market has the most clunky website experience. It randomly logouts every five minutes like when I’m typing in my info and I have to start all over, the confusing interface makes it difficult to navigate the page I need, I personally found it hard to track where items/orders stand. I absolutely hate the forced wallet/balance system. You can’t simply pay directly with a credit card at checkout like a normal site. These extra card fees + bad exchange rates made the shipping at least $6 over what it should have been. They charge fees to add balance, then the credited amount can be less than expected due to rates/processing and you have to do math calculations just to end up with the right amount because they don’t tell you beforehand. No clear shipping estimates upfront. You can’t properly compare options before consolidation. The lowest shipping cost for my 200 gram package with a plush keychain (valued at 10k yen) and it was 7800 yen. I’m in the US. But for me even with prepaid duties it seemed like overkill. There is no small packet option for low price items that didn’t make any sense to me. I also couldn’t believe they didn’t allow domestic shipping within Japan. Most proxies allow it for sites that aren’t Mercari but Zen Market does not. I wish I went with a different proxy as it was by far the most expensive and frustrating experience I’ve had and I can’t see myself using them again.