Shipment held with no warning, poor communication, and customer left to figure everything out
Extremely poor experience with Rakufun.
My goods were submitted on 7 June, yet by 16 June there was still no shipment and no clear in-app notification explaining the delay. I only found out the shipment was held after contacting live chat myself.
It was then revealed that items exceeding ¥200,000 require an export declaration — something new to me as I do not shop internationally that often. However, there was no proper in-app warning during consolidation, and the only notification was an email that ended up in spam. This led to several days of avoidable delay due to a complete lack of proper platform alerts.
To make things worse, the initial declaration form sent to me was in Chinese, yet I was told it must be filled in English. Only after I pointed this out via email was a proper Excel declaration form finally provided. This shows a lack of basic readiness and clear instructions for users.
As someone with no experience in export declarations, the process was confusing and poorly explained, forcing me to rely on external help just to complete it.
When I tried to avoid further delays by requesting cancellation and reconsolidation into smaller parcels, I was charged a 500 JPY fee, and my request to waive it was rejected. I also had to top up an internal wallet instead of using my Visa credit card, which is unnecessary and inconvenient.
Overall, this was a preventable situation made worse by poor communication, inconsistent documentation, and lack of proper in-app warnings. I will not be using Rakufun again.