In this post I will show you how the books had been packaged, the shipping cost and compare how accurate the estimated delivery time is with my experience, in case there are people who are concerned about this.
Honto.jp
Honto is a Japanese bookstore. I believe they have physical stores in Japan n addition to their website where they also ship internationally.
The site is in Japanese, which makes it a bit difficult to use for non Japanese speakers. But if you are using google chrome you can have it approximately translate the site for you which makes it a lot easier.
When searching for books you have to type the desired title in Japanese. If you aren't comfortable with that you can always find the wikipedia page of the book and copy paste the Japanese title.
Shipping time and cost with SAL - How long does it take?
The order was shipped on the 12th of September and arrived the 9th of October. Not counting weekends this is 19 work days. But regardless this is within the estimated international delivery time for SAL shipping of 2-6 weeks.
Since you won't know the actual shipping cost for international shipments when ordering from honto.jp, you might be worried what the cost ends up being.
In this case I ordered 1 volume of the Kanzenban edition of Hikaru no go (which is bigger/heavier than the tankobon). The shipping cost ended up being 696 JPY.
Comparison with cdjapan.co.jp shipping cost
In comparison shipping cost for 1 volume of manga, no matter whether it is tankobon or kanzenban, with SAL when ordering from cdjapan cost 500 JPY. I believe this is because honto.jp maybe gives you the actual shipping price for the weight of the package, while cdjapan uses fixed estimates based on the number of volumes you order, so that you know the shipping price when ordering. So in the case of a single kanzenban volume, the shipping price at cdjapan is cheaper, because it disregards the weight of the item.
*Note: The shipping prices for cdjapan has changed and are now a bit more expensive. For comparison check out my post about cdjapan.
*Note: The shipping prices for cdjapan has changed and are now a bit more expensive. For comparison check out my post about cdjapan.
Weight of tankobon compared to kanzenban volumes
To better give you an idea about the difference in weight, an avergage tankobon volume (Japanese) weights around 150 g, while a kanzenban volume can weight around 425 g. which is more than double the weight (almost triple).
So if you are buying bigger/heavier books you might save on shipping cost with SAL if you order from cdjapan because of the fixed estimate price.
Packaging - Did the items arrive safely?
1 kanzenban volume
The book was in perfect/mint condition and didn't seem to have gotten any damages at all while being shipped, so I am very happy with that.
The book i ordered (Hikaru no go kanzenban volume 2), did not come with an obi, I don't know if this is a general thing. Volume 1 which i bought used from an Amazon.co.jp seller, did come with an obi though.
Closing comment
Overall I am satisfied with my experience with honto.jp and can see myself using their services again in the future. It would be nice if they had more sales instead of just point campaigns, but maybe I haven't been keeping an eye out for it enough.
In this case the shipping cost ended up being a bit more expensive, than if I had ordered from cdjapan. I usually buy from both honto.jp and cdjapan.co.uk, when I am looking for Japanese books.
I want to find out which books have cheapest shipping cost depending on what you buy. So I might make an update if i find out anything further.
I hope this post was helpful.
Feel free to leave a comment below and please share your experience.
Have a nice day~
Comments
Post a Comment