One of the questions often asked by our customers is ‘When will my car get shipped?’

Well, most of the Japanese cars in our stock already have “de-registration documents” so we can start arranging the shipment next day we confirm your payment. Please get in touch with us to get an idea about the approximate ocean freight time for your country.

However, depending on the destination country, sometimes it may be difficult to book a shipment for the next available ship. For Carribean countries and Canada there are only few ships are available from Japan, and new cars get a priority for loading. Thus, the ocean Freight time will depend on the destination where you want to ship your car and may vary from several days to several months.

Please note that we can not be held responsible for any delay in shipping the vehicles purchased from us. But we always help you to sort out any problems if it is in our control.

To expediate the shipment process for certain countries with few ships from Japan, you can contact the local agent of the shipping company in your country and book a space for your car from Japan to your country. If you’d let us know the Shipping company, Vessel name, Voyage #, Estimated departure date and the Booking number, we can process the paperwork in Japan to ship your car.

Please understand that though we have good relations with the shipping companies, we do not own these companies, so your understanding is appreciated in case of any delays. Thank you !!

Technorati Tags: car, Japanese, cars, shipment, freight, Japan, vehicle, shipping

We have a good news for you. We are introducing a flat fee for buying cars at auction. The fees depend on the membership type. So we suggest you first complete the membership application at our new website

http://www.best-trade-auction.com

This website also has useful information such as freight calculator, currency converter etc. for the cars of your interest.

Technorati Tags: cars, auction, freight

Recently,we have faced many problems regarding freight charges from Japan to various destinations. Mombasa is 90 M3 (if the customer buys 70M3’s truck which is about 6,300 US$) and For Caribbean sea is about 140 M3 (if they would buy 70M3’s truck which is about 9,800 US$)

I wouldn’t take any commission from freight charge however some importers don’t believe that. Please notice !! For big trucks the freight charge is very high.

Technorati Tags: Japan, Mombasa, Caribbean, freight

Last weekend, I went to Tokyo Disneyland and stayed there with my family from Thursday to Saturday. My internet connection then was very slow and affected my replying to customer emails.

We had a nice view from the Hotel in Tokyo Disney Sea buy we experienced a typhoon on that day. We were lucky in that way, as there were few customers.  In popular holiday seasons in Japan, such as the Golden week, we have to wait for 2 hours just to buy a popcorn !! Can you believe it? That’s why I tried to go there in rainy season but I had not expected the typhoon.

Now we are having two problems about payment.

First incidence goes like this.  We received an order from a Caribbean country for 9 cars from one of our customners. But we just received the payment for 4 of these cars (90%). These cars have already been shipped to his country. We have a B/L for him, but we won’t send it unless we receive 100% of the payment for these cars.  Now we have a big problem.  The customer says that he will pay the money, but we can not trust him because he should have made the payment to us 2 months ago. We have already waited it for a long time.

Now I will be forced to sell these cars in Japan.  If we don’t return the deposit, the customer will lose a lot of money, and we don’t want to do this. We think it is our fault,too, because we should have been strict about the payment.  We thought he bought many cars, so we relaxed the rules, but it was not a right judgment.  Of course, we won’t send him the Bill of Loading unless we receive 100 % money. From now on, I have learned a lesson.  We will not ship the cars,  if the customer wouldn’t pay 100% amount within 4 days.  We will be firm with this rule.

One more similar incidence occurred.  We sold a car from USS auction to a Canadian buyer, but he wanted to cancel the order after he bought the car - because  he doesn’t  like the interior condition of the car.  Some parts of interior are not in good condition. He also said to he was not aware of this condition because we had not sent him the auction sheet. My reply to him was that we can not cancel the order. If he really wanted to see the auction sheet before buying the car, he should have mentioned to us before buying the car and we could have sent it to him. But he did not insist on it and we did not find it necessary to send him the auction sheet.

Of course we would buy a car with beautiful interior if the customer insists on it, but we can not read what is in the customers’ mind unless they tell us. Canadians can import only cars which are 15 year old. The car we selected for him had a grade “4″, so we had mentioned to him that the car was in a very good condition. It is very unrealistic to find a 15 year old car with perfect conditon and the customer has to understand it. Now I have no choice but  to take his deposit as I’d be forced to re-sell the car at USS auction again. I  can not cancel the order after buying the car -  that is the auction rule and I have to abide by it.  I really don’t want to cause trouble to customers, but if few cases like these occur, we may go bankrupt.

Technorati Tags: Tokyo Disneyland, USS auction, car

Today I’ll share with you one incidence which was a mistake on our part.

One of our customers from a Carribean country placed an order for a car with us. He had transferred part of the money to our bank account. Trusting that he will send the remaining money I went ahead and shipped the car to St. Lucia. I however did not send him the bill of loading. I was planning to send it to the customer only after getting the full payment. However the payment did not arrive from the customer. So I decided to stop the shipment at the port of Jamaica and negotiated with a shipment company in Jamaica to ship the car back to Japan. It was not possible for us to selll the car to any other customer in Jamaica because of the regulations regarding year of manufacturing.

The transportation fee for shipping the car back to Japan was huge - around $50,000 because no container was available and ours was the only car to be shippped by LO/LO ship. Reluctantly I agreed to ship the car though the price was high.In the meantime, the buyer got in touch with me again asking for discounts. We told him that we have stoppped the car in Jamaica because he did not pay the full amount. He was surprised and immediately transferred the remaining money. Fortunately the ship to Japan had not left, so the buyer could collect the car at Jamaica but he had to arrange for the transporation from Jamaica to St. Lucia

So you can see that it causes problems both for the buyers as well as us when customers do not send full payment by the agreed date.

We as exporter have to take care of many financial risks - such as paying for the storage fee of the car at the port, fees for ship backs etc.  So please understand why we ask for full payment before we could ship the car.

Technorati Tags: shipment, Japan, container, Jamaica, St. Lucia, car

Today Mr. Shiotsu, President of Shiotsu Auto Trade visited me in our new office. He was on his way home to Osaka from his business trip to Malaysia. We then discussed how we could ship Japanese used trucks into parts to countries which do not allow import of used vehicles. You can have a look at some ways how we shipped trucks by cutting them into manageable parts. Soon, we are planning to ship some trucks to Russia in this manner.

Technorati Tags: Malaysia, Japanese, used trucks, import, used vehicles, Russia