Cleaning Up: Thrifting and Resale Adventures in Japan
A stuffed closet. Something has to go soon. July 2020.
Saying goodbye to a couple friends who are going back to the US this month also meant receiving some of their old stuff and knowing I’ll regret having all this stuff when I leave. It was fun enough to watch them struggling to figure out what to pack and ship and what to leave behind. I don’t want to repeat that fun when I leave in a year or so. So I’m starting the fun early!
It is inevitable that I will have a lot of things I’ll want to bring with me from Japan, but as much as possible, I want to start limiting that. Here’s the simple three-way process I came up with:
Use it
Sell it
Let it go
Using these three ways to eliminate stuff, I hope to lessen the struggle when my time to say goodbye comes.
Use it
“Use it” means using what I already have, such as all the food, kitchen stuff, crafting supplies, and cleaning supplies, before buying any more. I plan to heavily limit what I buy and focus on using up what is already on hand. One useful technique I’ve found to do this is always shopping with a list that was made at home while looking at all the stuff I already have. I also received a load of crafting supplies from one friend, so I can use my short summer vacation time in August to sit at my work desk and make materials for teaching and plan out homemade gifts for my students graduating next spring. Using up stuff effectively means planning ahead a little, which is one of my favorite pastimes anyway. Not to mention, it also means saving money, which is as good as earning more money for me.
Sell it
For the things I don’t plan to use, I will try “sell it.” This method is the most fun for me right now since I have the time to test it out before I leave Japan. And if someone else finds my stuff useful and gives me money for it, win-win. I enjoyed using Amazon and ebay in college to sell books and usable parts from a broken blender. It is a bit different in Japan, however. Ebay is difficult to navigate with shipping options for Japan, so I gave up on that site for now. My US Amazon seller account does not work unless I’m shipping to the US, which is not a useful option with current world issues limiting my ability to ship out of Japan. Time to explore my local resources instead. Here are some of the other options I have started testing.
You can usually find local Facebook groups for selling or giving things away. There are quite a few options for foreigners living in Japan because we obviously come and go and need to get rid of stuff often. There are many groups around the Tokyo area, but even where I’m at in Tohoku, I’ve found a few groups. It is a limited audience of course, but for some of the larger and useful items I may want to sell before I leave such as furniture and my car, they are good options.
Letgo
Letgo is an app that lets you post things and sellers contact you about it. It’s simple and free to upload pictures and information and set your location. There is no support for shipping, so it is basically a marketplace like Facebook to get in touch with local buyers. It is also very much dead in Tohoku Japan. There are no results of things for sale near me. I decided to test it out anyway and post some clothes, but so far it shows only one person has looked at my posts. I may get lucky and the one person who sees the item wants it. I am better off testing out some other ways.
Thrift Stores in Person
I do not expect much money from this option. It is my last resort to use to just get rid of stuff and hopefully get a little cash for it. So far I have only sold stuff to the Off-House and Hard-Off brand thrift stores which are found all over Japan. They took a bunch of small random things left by my apartment predecessor and gave me about 1500 yen for it. Not bad for completely unwanted stuff. For five jackets and shirts they gave me a measly 50 yen. They sometimes don’t even take your clothes if they have too much stock, it’s too worn, or it’s the wrong season and they can’t put it out and sell it quickly. Some other local thrift stores I may try in the future are Takku (which stocks a lot of furniture stuff) and Second Street (which seems to sell more high-end clothing than Off-House). I will have to see if they give me more money for certain things.
Thrift Stores Online
This is a surprising option I did not know existed before. There are a number of online resale stores (called 買取 kaitori in Japanese) that send the postman to pick up a box of your stuff. They ship it to the store, and then the store goes through the stuff and gives you money through a bank transfer or gift card. Some places offer to send you a box, which you then fill and send back. You don’t even have to leave home to get rid of stuff this way. Some of the sites also give estimates beforehand for how much they may pay you for certain items. This website lists a bunch of sell back sites that specifically take books and it rates them on how much people seem to make off selling their stuff: book.kaitori.info.
Using that website, I chose their top option to test out: kaitoriouji.jp. This store lets you send your own box or request one of their boxes to fill and send. It is free to send (at least for the first time — future times may have a shipping fee). They seem to accept a large selection of items. The sign-up process is completely in Japanese, but it was quite simple. I had to also verify my identification and include my bank account information for the transfer to receive a payment (you can use a picture of your Japanese driver’s license, passport, or residence card for identification). I then set up a time for the postman to come pick up the box of goods. For the sake of experimentation, I will send them a selection of unwanted Japanese manga and books and maybe some other stuff I have been meaning to get rid of that are in good condition. Now I wait to see what happens.
I was going to test out Value Books, but when setting up the information to send a box, I noticed that it costs 500 yen to send. If I know I’ll get more money for the books, I will try it out. Their website has a very useful scanner function that lets you scan your bookshelf or individual book barcodes and get estimates for how much they will pay you for the books. I need to spend some more time testing that out. The manga I scanned were only valued at 1 yen each, but maybe some of the other Japanese books I have will give me more.
Mercari
The Mercari app and website seems to be the most popular choice for directly selling used goods to buyers in Japan. It lets you post items for sale and also helps you with setting up shipping. It reminds me of a newer and cleaner version of ebay. The English version of the app does not let me use it in Japan because it is location specific, but I plan to push my way through the Japanese version and see if I can sell a few dresses I never wear. I should be able to at least get more than a thrift store will give me. My buyer audience will mainly be Japanese, so I will have to brush up on some good vocabulary for describing items. This option will take a bit more research and work to get started, but will likely pay the most and reach more potential buyers than the other options I am testing out.
Finding new ways to sell things within Japan is an adventure for sure. The most I’ll probably get out of it is experience, which is priceless and valuable in its own way. A little extra cash is always welcome, too.
Let it go
Doing “Let it go” is not as easy as it was back in the US. Where I’m from, there is a huge donation center you can drop off anything at. They will take and throw it out for you or resell it. You do not get anything for it but relief of not needing to worry about too much stuff anymore. I have not found that option where I’m at in Japan. There are many thrift stores, but they may or may not take your stuff depending on its condition and if they want it. I do not like throwing things in the trash if it could potentially still be used. Letting things go will be the last step when my time to leave Japan comes. If I can’t find a home for everything before then, I’ll have to suck it up and throw stuff away (or hopefully recycle if possible).
I’m just at the start of this adventure of clearing out stuff, so I’ll have to report back on my results later. Stay tuned for future posts about cleaning out and selling in Japan. If you have any helpful ideas to share, also feel free to comment below.
By Kate Linsley