I have put this guide together to help people get started ordering items from Amazon Japan. It can be difficult at first, because unlike most languages in Europe or the America's, Japanese is a very different language both grammatically and alphabetically. For instance, even if you do not speak French, you can still reasonably assume that a link marked "Paiement" might refer to information about how to pay for orders placed through the site. With Japanese, however, there is no point of common origin, and without prior knowledge, you might never realize that the link marked "支払い方法" provides the same information.
Japanese is not my first language. It's not even my second language. I don't speak it fluently, I read it laboriously and only with the assistance of a dictionary, and I can't write it at all. As such, I have almost certainly made unintentional errors in the creation of this document. I have tried here to capture my experiences in the hope that others might be able to use this information to help them explore the wonderful world of Japanese media. I cannot be held responsible for any problems caused by inaccurate or incorrect information on this page. We are dealing with your money and your credit cards, and if you are uncomfortable with this, DO NOT PLACE ANY ORDERS! I cannot stress this enough. In my experience, I have found Amazon to be a reliable and trustworthy online retailer. However, any misunderstanding or problems you have while ordering goods from Amazon Japan are between you and them. Do not contact me with problems you may experience or with customer service related issues. I will not translate pages or emails or any official communications for you.
That said, all images presented herein are the exclusive copyright of Amazon.com, Inc. and it's affiliates. I don't own them, I don't want them, and I'm not making any profit off of this. In fact, I'm doing them a small service which should increase their customer base. If an agent of Amazon.com, Inc. wishes for me to remove this page and the images contained herein, I will gladly do so.
This section should give you a basic overview of the core features of the Amazon Japan website. This information is current as of August 17, 2001. The basic Amazon Japan front page is presented below. Notice how similar it is to the main, North American Amazon site. We'll use this familiarity to help us through the main steps in ordering.
At the top of the page are the same links you'd expect to find on any Amazon site.
The shopping cart is self-explanitory. The next link is help (ヘルプ). Notice that when you move the mouse over the link, you get the URL in the status bar.
Notice anything? That's right! It's got English names. If you get lost, you can often look at the name of a given link and figure out what it's supposed to do. This is perhaps most useful on the help page, where the URLs have names like "shipping-policy.html". The final link is the "Your Account" link. This is where you will change your account information and check order status.
The next part down is the banner. Of particular interest are the books, music, and DVDs. The first tab will simply return you to the front page. The tab with the "NEW" label is actually a new foreign books section, where you can buy books in English if you want. (Of course it's probably cheaper just buying from Amazon.com!) The international stores link will take you to a page where you can visit Amazon stores for the US/Canada, UK, Germany, France, and so on! You're on your own there, though. I don't know German!
The last key part of the front page is the search box. It works just like the US Amazon search box. There are pull-down options to select which store (books, music, DVDs) you wish to search through. For the most part, you'll want to leave it on the default setting, すべての商品, which searches over all the stores.
Okay, enough of that. Let's get an account set up. Right under the banner, you'll see a brief text box reading, "こんにちは。初めて利用する方はサインインしてください。", which means, roughly, "First time users sign in here."
Click on the link marked "サインイイ" (sign in) and you will get a login screen.
Type in your email in the first field. Make sure the top radio button is checked. That will indicate that you are creating a new account. The second radio button and field are for passwords for existing accounts. Once you've created your account, that is what you will use. Click the big yellow button (henceforth referred to as the BYB) to continue.
Now you will have to type in your full name. If you were Japanese or Chinese, you would have Kanji characters to write your name. In this case, we're American, so we just type our numbers using the Roman alphabet. The second field is for the furigana pronunciation of your name. This field is only used so that Amazon Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) know how to address you on the phone. You'll probably never use it. You can either leave it blank or just type your name in again. If you know your name in furigana, you can type it in, but then, you probably don't need this guide. The bottom two fields are for your password. Type it in twice to confirm. Click the BYB.
Back to the front page! Notice that you are now greeted with "Konnichi-wa, Joe Blow-san!" How's that for respect?
Click on the "Your Account" button in the top-right corner of the page. (See above) You'll get an account maintence screen that looks something like this.
The brownish link labelled (1) is your order status screen. Right now, it won't be that interesting, but as you order more frequently, it will become incredibly useful. The brownish link labelled (2), is where you will change your password, name, or email address.
Okay, now you have an account, let's find some good stuff to buy.
Ideally, you would have a Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) installed on your system. If you knew Japanese, you could type in the name of the item you were searching for in any of the search fields. However, since we don't have that luxury, we're going to have to use more crafty means. I'm going to assume at this point that we're going to be searching primarily for anime and manga. Some of these techniques apply to other items as well.
To order at Amazon Japan, you're going to have to do your homework. Sometimes you can get lucky by just typing in the name of the item you're looking for using the Roman alphabet. For the most part, however, this won't work. You're going to need to find an ISBN number for the item you're looking for. Once you've got the ISBN number you want, you can just type it straight into the search field (no dashes) and you will get the book you are looking for, as long as it is listed on Amazon Japan.
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Every CD released in Japan has a catalog number. This is usually a three or four letter code followed by a 2 to 5 digit number. For instance, the first Vision of Escaflowne soundtrack has a cataloge number of VICL-769. Once you know the catalogue number for the item you are searching for, you can type it directly into the search field (including dashes!) and you will get the CD you are looking for, so long as it is listed on Amazon Japan.
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Once you have found the item you are looking for, it is time to add them to the cart. Let's say for instance you are interested in the novels which form the basis for the "Crest of the Stars" anime.
The page is laid out exactly like Amazon US! The prices are in yen, of course. There is even stock information. Just like Amazon US, item availability is given in the following units: ships in 24 hours, ships in 2-3 days, ships in 3-4 weeks, ships in 4-6 weeks. Rather than learning how to read the kanji providing this information, just look for "24", "2~3", "3~4", and "4~6", and you've got it. To add the item to your cart, press the BYB.
In your cart, you can delete items, save items for later, or change the quantity of any item in your cart. Press the BYB to checkout!
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