Because I had already asked Visual Shoxx for help with some Mbok auctions, I didn't want to ask for even more help with Yahoo Auctions, even though I doubt they would've complained. Instead, I searched online and ended up with
Japamart. At first I wasn't too sure about them, because they ask for a deposit in advance, but they've turned out to be trustworthy. Basically: you deposit money to them and you can bid for up to twice the value of this deposit. If you like, you can pay invoices with this deposit, and if you don't pay, Japamart use the deposit to pay instead. I'm not sure how I feel about everything being in dollars, since, after all, we're really dealing with yen, but oh well.
Basically, you click "Start bid", which then redirects you to the website of Yahoo Auctions. You can search at the top, either by keywords or by the auction ID, if you know it. Below this are the following buttons: Bid/Buy (speaks for itself), Translate (since the Japanese is still Japanese), Add to Watchlist, Original page (shows you the page on Yahoo Auctions itself, without the Japamart features) and Mypage (where you see your own dashboard).
What I really like is that you can bid on everything yourself. Bear in mind, though: there is a commission fee of 5 USD per item (probably gets more the more expensive your item is), and there are shipping, transaction and bank fees (if applicable). If you win items from the same seller in the same day, these will be combined - though the commission fee still applies. You receive an invoice afterwards, but remember that your Paypal name and address must match the ones registered with them, or it may take a while for them to process your payment!
After payment, you receive a notification whenever an item arrives at their warehouse, where they will keep it up to thirty days. You simply request shipping and choose what type of shipping you want and what value you want put on the package (item value or item value plus all the fees); they send you an invoice, you pay it, and they ship your items to you as quickly as possible. They recommend EMS and to put the value plus fees on the package, which, yes, is safer, but in my experience EMS is fast, and the higher the value on the package, the bigger the chance is over here that you're charged customs as well.
I ordered quite a few things, so I waited for all of them to arrive and then chose Airmail, with only the item value on the package. Everything arrived safely and fast!
