Payment Methods

How to pay on SeidoShop.com

SeidoShop.com offers only one payment methods: online payment by credit card.

SeidoShop allows you to select almost all currencies in the world, so you will pay in your own currency.
Although the shop's currency can be set depending on your location, all our prices are determined in Japanese YEN so prices in any other currency than JPY will vary several times a day, depending on the exchange rate.
At checkout, you will be charge in your selected currency, all exchange fees are included, so you will be precisely charged the amount displayed.

Contents

Credit card payment via Shopify (main payment method)

The fastest way to pay on SeidoShop: Nothing more is needed than entering your credit card information at checkout.
Accepted cards: Visa, MasterCards and American Express (some cards may not be accepted from certain countries).
Shopify does not accept disposable/one-time-use/Ecards.
Apple Pay: on compatible devices, "Apple Pay" express checkout will be displayed at the first checkout step.
Payment currency: your currency.
Debit on your account: immediate (can take a few days depending on your account details)
Fraud protection: yes, with the highest standards of the industry.
Security level: PCI level 1, currently no higher level of security available.
Credit card information storage: Nowhere. The information is passed to your bank and as soon as the bank has confirmed or not the authorization, the information is deleted. We only keep the 4 last digits of the card number.

Payment refusal ? It is for your own safety

The payment processor will check the following elements when processing a payment and come up with a "potential risk of fraud" ratio. If this number is too high, your payment will be blocked. Here are a few key points that might prevent you from validating your payment and some solutions.

Verification: The transaction history of the card holder which includes data shared with other financial institutions.
Solution: If you have a complicated history with your bank, you can try a card from another bank, or borrow a card from a friend. That is the only solution.
Verification: Flow deviation, which means that Payment processors monitors your browser activity during the payment process. Opening another website in a new tab during the payment process may be interpreted as a risk by the Payment processors fraud prevention algorithm.
Solution: Finish the payment process at once and without consulting another website.
Verification: Payment processors verifiy where you physically are, where the store is you are buying from as well as the delivery address.
Solution: make sure your billing address is the same as used for your credit card registration. Try to use a shipping address in the same country as the billing address (if you absolutely need to be delivered in another country, we can modify your shipping address afterwards).
Verification: Payment processors verify the potential risk of your internet connection (softwares used to retain/hide data or make your connection anonymous are suspicious).
Solution: deactivate all softwares that may prevent your localization, especially browser extensions/apps (you can keep your firewall on). If you are using a public network (open Wi-Fi, work, school),please try again from home (it will be far more secure for you anyway).
Verification: Payment processors need to verify the identity of the card's bearer.
Solution: contrary to what is announced by many banks, this is not possible with some E-Cards/disposable cards. Payments by E-Card will thus automatically be rejected so the only solution is to use another card.

You still can not process the payment ? First, please check with your bank if you have all the authorizations needed to place a payment online in a foreign country.
If so, please contact us. We will try to find a solution together.

What about credit card payment security ?

Our checkout page is fully secured with the latest technology provided by Shopify, world leader of online shopping cart solution with an excellent reputation when it comes to security. If you are on a secured connection on your end, the information you exchange is hidden from third parties. Stripe and Shopify use many kinds of security features that you would expect from any world scale financial institution and as far as we know, none of they ever experienced any credit card information leak.
However, it happens to have your data stolen from a risky behavior on your end, so here are a few tips to avoid any trouble with your card, at least on our website.

Never place any order from a public connection (i.e. public Wi-Fi, internet cafe, etc.)
Never click on any link you may find in emails (except from the receipt you receive right after your payment), or if you do so, do not enter any password/sensitive information on the landing website. Almost all hackers try to make you type your personal information on their own "fake/imitation" website. It is called "fishing".
Last but not least: Never leave your credit card unwatched. The very large majority of credit card frauds happen due to information stolen on the card itself (i.e. taking a picture of the card behind the counter...)

Pricing in Japanese YEN and other currencies

In the past, our prices were set in YEN and other currencies were for information purpose only. This caused various issues with customers charged more than what was displayed in their currency, as well as issues with credit card companies not accepting Japanese YEN payments.
We worked on a system that allows us to accept (almost) any currency in the world, so as of February 2024, we will charge you in the currency you selected, and you will pay exactly the amount displayed. All exchange and payment fees are now included.

Our prices include currency exchange fees and all payment fees for transborder payments. Prices are updated automatically twice a day, based on the official exchange rate at the time of the update.

Other payment methods

PayPal

As of October 2020, Seido has decided to no longer work with PayPal until further notice.
This decision is motivated by 4 points:
- PayPal's decision to no longer reimburse the 4% payment fee charged to us, whether in the event of a full or partial refund, or in the case of a cancellation of payment for risk of fraud. In addition, this decision came in the midst of the covid19 crisis, at the exact moment international transport was paralyzed, forcing many shops to cancel a significant number of orders (conversely, most of the other platforms have offered support to small businesses).
- PayPal's decision to remove large account "managers", then to remove specific merchant support, depriving us of any possibility of contacting a human being specializing in commercial matters.
- The fact that PayPal was banned by 2 major Japanese banks (including one of Seido's banks) in September 2020.
- PayPal's terms of sale allow them to keep control over all the money received for 6 months without any form of control over their decision making.

Payments by bank transfer:

International bank transfers to Japan are a bit complicated: Our bank, alike all Japanese banks, will charge 4,400 YEN for receiving an international transfer, add currency exchange fees and use a terrible exchange rate for incoming payments set in another currency than Japanese Yen.
This method should therefore be requested in advance by email and the minimum order amount for bank transfers is 100,000 JPY.
As we also need to justify the reasons of the transfer to our bank (measures against international fraud), we will refuse all transfers that have not been pre-approved by email.

Other options: e.g. cash payment:

Payment in cash, sent by ordinary mail or hand delivered by an acquaintance living in Japan is also possible.
Local bank transfers (Japan > Japan) can not be accepted for international orders (shipped outside of Japan).

Payments by check, Western Union, or any other methods are not accepted.