Facebook Marketplace Japan

Facebook publishes a list of the countries where Marketplace is available, and Japan is not on it. In practice, Marketplace still shows Japanese listings: around Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe there are shelves, sofas and bikes for sale in yen, some of them with titles in English.

As everywhere outside the United States, there is no Facebook shipping or purchase protection: buyer and seller arrange payment and pickup themselves, usually locally. Facebook also expects Marketplace users to be adults with an active account, so you need to log in to message a seller. If you live outside Japan, these listings are realistic only when you, or someone you trust, can collect in person.

BuyHub offers twelve Japanese locations: Tokyo, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Saitama, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. Choose one, filter by price, condition, category or date listed, and sort by newest, price or distance. Japanese titles come back translated into English.

Searching Facebook takes the free BuyHub extension for Chrome or Firefox, or the BuyHub app, since the requests go through your own connection. A radar on a Japanese city keeps checking even while you sleep and your devices are off.

Japanese buyers and sellers have their own services: Mercari, which calls itself Japan's largest flea-market service, Yahoo! Auctions, Yahoo! Flea Market and Rakuten Rakuma, plus Jimoty for handing things over locally. BuyHub searches Mercari Japan, Yahoo! Auctions, Yahoo! Flea Market and Rakuma in English and can combine them with Marketplace. Note that Yahoo! JAPAN's own sites have not been accessible from the EEA or the UK since April 2022.