Experiences with online shops

[Trymer]

So I've been wondering, what are everyone's experiences with the different online shops for Cipher?

I've seen that most people pre-order from AmiAmi and most singles get traded around on the forums.
A few have told me to avoid TCGRepublic for mostly all N/HN/R's because of inflated pricing, but I've seen some R (and SR) cards recently get into the "decent/normal" price rate.
Also really neat to mention they added a bonus B07 pack with my shipment as a gift, which surprised me a hell of a lot too. Anyone similar experiences on first buys?

I'm also wondering about experiences with Rakuten, Bigweb and Amenity Dream (and maybe some other stores that aren't listed on the wiki).
So with experiences I mean things that stood out to you and are not in the short store summaries on the Merchandise Guide ;)

[Alternis]

I had a pretty good first experience with TCGRepublic when buying a few SR's in bulk. Getting a bonus B06 booster pack was nice too. 

The N/HN/R prices are ridiculous though. Staying far away from those, but when it comes to R+/ SR / SR+ I will definitely buy from them again. 

Still need to give AmiAmi a try, mainly for the boxes, but they always seem to be out of stock. ; - ;

[Aquantis]

Rakuten can be cheaper, but only if you buy a lot of cards, as all the individual sellers I've seen there only send Express mail (so ~$15 base for shipping).  I have found that Rakuten is normally way cheaper than the way overpriced TCGRepublic, even with the added shipping cost.

Bigweb usually has the best prices, and Amneitydream has decent ones too (those 2 sites are what most card prices are based on for trades and stuff).  I believe you have to go through an intermediary to order from them though

[SalShich10N]

While I bought from TCG republic before I knew any better, they do have two very strong points besides their inflated prices: Free International EMS Shipping (if buying 50+ USD, which might as well be three or four SRs or so) and they give you free packs. I got two from them.

The other, and main, card shop I use is Amenity Dream plus a forwarding service called 2you4. Between the two of those it's 3000 yen on EMS total for shipping, which is the same as shipping from somewhere like Amiami and it's great as you can get tons of Rs, N and HN like 10 yen a piece. Overall one of the more cost-efficient ones when it comes to mass purchase and collection rounding.

And my third source for cards is some dude here in my city I found through what's the local equivalent of ebay that gets cards in bulk off japanese auctions. He sells them to me for relatively the same price as amenity dream without shipping expense and offers a good chat. Might be a lolicon, likes Fae a bit too much. Do search around for your area for someone else who likes Cipher as well, you might come across some higher ranking weeb that might help you gets cards for cheaper.

6 hours ago, Aquantis said:

Rakuten can be cheaper, but only if you buy a lot of cards, as all the individual sellers I've seen there only send Express mail (so ~$15 base for shipping).  I have found that Rakuten is normally way cheaper than the way overpriced TCGRepublic, even with the added shipping cost.

Bigweb usually has the best prices, and Amneitydream has decent ones too (those 2 sites are what most card prices are based on for trades and stuff).  I believe you have to go through an intermediary to order from them though

I find that Amenity Dream has cheaper prices on PRs while Bigweb has better prices on some Rs or SRs. The variation is usually like 100-200 yen or so. The big difference is that Bigweb doesn't accept paypal or foreign credit cards while Amenity Dream does accept paypal, making it much easier to use forwarding services and the reason why I don't use Bigweb.

Edited March 24, 2017 by SalShich10N

[Myst]

I've purchased off of Amenity Dream before and I can attest that their quality of shipment is also very high. I forwarded to tenso and it was very simple getting the shipment to me. Definitely worth the price compared to TCG Republic.

They even usually have more cards in stock to begin with.

[Trymer]

seems like when the forum can't help me out finding a card I need my best bet is trying Amenity Dream then and looking into the proxy shipping.
and hope that google translate helps enough with helping me understand what it is that I need to be doing haha.

also what payment options do those sites have? I've seen most accept credit cards, but rakuten also has that UnionPay.
I'm wondering do some of those sites also do paypal? I don't own a credit card and where I've grown up it's really ill-advised to own or use one.
(my parents literally like only own one which is inactive just for the sake of being able to activate it if something goes horribly wrong on vacation so we can rent things)

[SalShich10N]

On 4/2/2017 at 1:10 PM, Trymer said:

seems like when the forum can't help me out finding a card I need my best bet is trying Amenity Dream then and looking into the proxy shipping.
and hope that google translate helps enough with helping me understand what it is that I need to be doing haha.

also what payment options do those sites have? I've seen most accept credit cards, but rakuten also has that UnionPay.
I'm wondering do some of those sites also do paypal? I don't own a credit card and where I've grown up it's really ill-advised to own or use one.
(my parents literally like only own one which is inactive just for the sake of being able to activate it if something goes horribly wrong on vacation so we can rent things)

Oh trust me, google translate is much more useful than you think. I recommend more a forwarder than a proxy, for those are on the cheaper side, but then again I have no experience with a proxy. I use this one https://www.2you4.jp/

Amenity Dream offers paypal payment. Your parents are wise with credit cards, let me tell you. Tools for modern slavery is what those things are.