Bentos on Ebay
Ok, I know I have been singing the praises of Ichiban Kan (I am not affiliated with them, nor with any other shop, I just shop there) but there are other places to feed your bento need. eBay is a great place to find all sorts of odd and beautiful bento boxes and accessories. You can find everything from the traditional to the wacky. Be aware of what you are buying though. Check the description throughly, read to find out exactly what you are getting. I had ordered a bento for my mom (the aforementioned Winnie the Pooh bento) while the bento was a great price, a great seller, and the set was awesome, but I had thought it was getting a 2-tiered. Had I actually read the description I would have seen that it was a 1-tier. My mom still loved it but I was a little disappointed. It was fully my fault though and the disappointment could have been avoided had I read a little instead of spazing and clicking the “Buy It Now” button.
The other thing you need to watch for is shipping prices. I have seen many cheap and lovely bentos but the shipping prices were WAY too high. If you look around you can get an idea of what reasonable prices are. Look at the feedback and see what other people are saying about the shipping prices and speed. Another thing to look at is location. It will cost more and take longer if the seller is in Japan, though that is where most of the bento sets come from. There are a lot of great bento seller in the USA too though, and the shipping is cheaper (if you live in North America that is) and it is sure to get to you faster as well.
CHECK FEEDBACK! Most important thing. If a person has a lot of recent negatives then you know to avoid them. If there are only a few, read, a lot of times it is over stupid stuff, or from non-paying buyers trying to cause trouble.
I will be putting up a page soon listing eBay sellers that I have bought from and I will try to remember to list where the sellers are from as well.