Personal Shopping & Proxy Buying Glossary

This glossary defines the core terms personal shoppers and proxy buyers use every day, across business models, money, shipping, and operations. A proxy buyer purchases items on a client's behalf; landed cost is the total door-to-door price; de minimis is the value below which imports enter duty-free. Each definition below stands on its own.

Business models

Proxy buyer. A proxy buyer purchases items on a client's behalf, typically from a marketplace or country the client can't access directly, then charges the item cost plus a service fee. The buyer's edge is access — a Japanese address, a domestic payment card, and the language to deal with sellers. See how the roles compare in personal shopper vs proxy vs concierge.

Personal shopper. A personal shopper is someone who selects and buys goods for clients, ranging from in-store styling to cross-border sourcing. Where a proxy buyer's value is access, a personal shopper's often adds taste, curation, and time saved.

Personal concierge. A personal concierge handles a broad set of errands and lifestyle tasks — bookings, gifts, logistics — of which shopping is one. The concierge model bills for time and access to a service, not a markup on goods.

Buying agent. A buying agent (or sourcing agent) is hired to find and purchase specific items, often at wholesale or from hard-to-reach suppliers, on a commission or retainer. The term overlaps heavily with proxy buyer in cross-border retail.

Reseller. A reseller buys goods on their own account and resells them at a marked-up price, owning the inventory and its risk. A proxy buyer, by contrast, buys only after a client commits, so they don't hold stock — the key distinction for cashflow and risk.

Dropshipping. Dropshipping is a model where a seller lists goods they don't hold and a third party ships them directly to the buyer. Proxy buying is not dropshipping: the proxy actually purchases, receives, and re-sends the specific item a named client requested.

Storefront. A storefront is a shopper's public page where clients see what's offered and submit requests, replacing "DM me for details." A storefront with a real request form captures order specifics once, in a structured place, instead of scattering them across chat threads.

Group order (GO). A group order pools several clients' requests into one bulk purchase or shipment to split shipping costs or clear a seller's minimum. Common in fandom and hobby niches where per-person shipping from Japan would otherwise be prohibitive.

Money & fees

Landed cost. Landed cost is the total a client pays for an item to reach their door: item price, service fee, domestic shipping, international shipping, and import duty or tax. Quoting it in full is the single most trust-critical habit in proxy shopping — the method is in how to quote landed cost.

Service fee. A service fee (or buying fee) is what the shopper charges for the work of sourcing and buying, shown as its own line separate from the item price. Personal shoppers commonly charge 10–20% and Japan proxy buyers 5–15%, usually with a per-item minimum. The structures are compared in proxy shopping service fees.

Markup vs commission. Markup adds a fixed amount or percentage on top of the item price; commission is a percentage of the item's value earned as the fee. In practice the two overlap, and most shoppers use a percentage commission with a minimum floor, charging whichever is higher.

Deposit. A deposit is money collected before the shopper purchases anything, committing the client and covering the shopper's fronted capital. Fifty percent is standard for retail and 100% for auctions, pre-orders, and small orders — the sizing and terms are in deposits and payment terms.

Balance. The balance is the remainder of the landed cost due after the item is secured and photographed, and before it ships internationally. Collecting the balance before shipment is what keeps a shopper from losing leverage once a parcel is in transit.

Float. Float is the shopper's own cash tied up in goods bought but not yet fully paid for by clients. At scale, float is the money you must keep on hand to fund purchases while deposits and balances catch up, and misjudging it is a leading cause of cashflow trouble.

Chargeback. A chargeback is a payment reversal a client initiates through their bank or card provider, disputing a transaction. A shopper defends one with written terms, the client's approval, proof photos, and tracking — the playbook is in handling problem clients, refunds and disputes.

Payment rail. A payment rail is the method money moves through — PayPal, Wise, a bank transfer, or a card link. Each has different fees and buyer/seller protections, so the choice of rail materially affects both your costs and your recourse if a payment is ever disputed.

Invoice. An invoice is the itemized request for payment listing each landed-cost line and carrying the shopper's own payment link. A clear invoice doubles as a record if a dispute ever arises — what to include is in how to invoice personal shopping clients.

Mid-market rate. The mid-market rate is the real exchange rate between two currencies, without a markup added. Cards and PayPal typically add a spread of a few percent to cross-border conversions, while services like Wise charge closer to the mid-market rate — a margin that adds up across many orders.

Shipping & customs

De minimis. De minimis is the shipment value below which imports enter a country free of import duty. In 2026 it is roughly $800 in the US, €150 for duty in the EU, and £135 in the UK; the EU and UK still charge VAT well below those figures. Verify current thresholds on the official US Customs and Border Protection and UK government pages.

DDP. DDP (delivered duty paid) means the sender prepays import duties and taxes so the parcel arrives with nothing left to pay. It removes the customs surprise for the client but requires the shopper to know or advance the duty, so it's usually offered only through couriers that support it.

DDU. DDU (delivered duty unpaid), also called DAP, means the client pays duties and taxes to the carrier or customs at delivery. Most proxy orders ship DDU with the duty quoted as an estimate and marked as the buyer's responsibility.

Importer of record. The importer of record is the party legally responsible for a shipment clearing customs and paying any duty owed. In a typical proxy order the client is the importer of record, which is why customs bills them, not the shopper.

HS code. An HS code (Harmonized System code) is the standardized number that classifies a product for customs, determining its duty rate. Declaring the correct HS code and an honest value keeps a shipment compliant; the Japan customs and import duties guide covers how classification affects what a client pays.

Declared value. Declared value (or customs value) is the amount written on the customs form as the shipment's worth, used to assess duty and tax. It must be honest — undervaluing a parcel to dodge duty is customs fraud, not a favor, and the customs value usually includes shipping, not just the item.

EMS. EMS (Express Mail Service) is Japan Post's fast, tracked, insured international courier, the default for most Japan proxy parcels at roughly ¥2,000–¥10,000 by weight and zone. Details and alternatives are in the shipping from Japan cost guide and on Japan Post's EMS site.

Forwarding. Forwarding is a service that gives a client a local address to receive domestic parcels, then consolidates and reships them abroad. A forwarder handles the shipping leg; a proxy buyer additionally handles the purchase, which is the harder part for JP-only sellers.

Reship. Reship means receiving an item at one address and sending it onward to the client's country. Proxy shoppers reship constantly — buy to a Japanese address, then send internationally — and consolidating several buys into one reship saves the client money.

Dimensional weight. Dimensional weight (or volumetric weight) is a shipping charge based on a parcel's size rather than its actual weight, used when a box is bulky but light. Carriers bill the greater of actual and dimensional weight, so padding and box size directly affect the shipping quote.

ePacket / airmail. ePacket and airmail are lower-cost postal options for light parcels, slower than EMS and with more limited tracking. They suit small, inexpensive, non-urgent items where the client will trade speed for a lower rate.

The two duty models at a glance:

Operations

Proof photo. A proof photo is a time-stamped image of the actual purchased item in hand, sent to the client before the balance is due and kept as dispute evidence. A consistent proof-photo habit is core to the order-updates and proof-photos workflow.

Client portal. A client portal is a private page where a client sees their own orders, statuses, and chat in one place, instead of scattered DM threads. It cuts "any update?" churn and looks professional — the case for one is in why personal shoppers need a client portal.

Sourcing. Sourcing is the work of finding a requested item — searching marketplaces, comparing sellers, and verifying authenticity and condition. For Japan buyers it means knowing sites like Mercari, Yahoo! Auctions, and Suruga-ya, and judging condition and legitimacy from a listing alone.

Grail. A grail is a rare, sought-after item a collector has been hunting for a long time, often the trigger for hiring a proxy in the first place. Sourcing a grail can justify a higher fee because the effort and knowledge required are far above a routine buy.

Pre-order. A pre-order is a purchase of an item before it's released or manufactured, with the money committed months ahead of delivery. Pre-orders are almost never cancellable, which is why shoppers collect 100% up front on them.

Lead time. Lead time is the elapsed span from a client's request to the item reaching their door, spanning sourcing, purchase, receiving, and both shipping legs. Quoting a realistic lead time up front prevents the anxious mid-order messages that cost shoppers the most time.

Quest / request intake. A request (sometimes called a quest) is a single client ask captured with its specifics — item, budget, condition, deadline — as a discrete unit to quote and track. Capturing requests through a structured form rather than free-form DMs is what tools like Shopperquest turn into a trackable order, and where a scattered inbox stops being the system of record.

Keep this glossary handy as you build out the rest of your operation; the terms here recur across every guide in the library, and the pillar on the best tools for personal shoppers puts many of them to work in context.