Where do Japanese shops buy their inventory?

Japanese game shops always have their lists on the Internet and in retail stores, telling you how much they will pay for your games. These lists are always completely ridiculous and undervalued. For example, when I was in Japan they would offer 1500yen for a Rendering Ranger whereas it was sold for 28'000yen in the SAME SHOP (back then).

Other ridiculous stuff included 500yen for a Super Smash Bros (they'd put it on display for 4900yen five minutes after you got that 500yen coin) and 2500 for Radiant Silvergun. These are just a few examples, I could go on and on forever citing offensive offers from the pricelist I grabbed back then.

Well, shops gotta pay the rent somehow, but I wonder... in today's modern age, where do they get all those rare retro games? Are there really still enough completely oblivious and careless owners of rare, mint condition retro games out there who sell a Rendering Ranger for $50 to a shop when one Google search would have revealed its real value within 2 seconds?

Or does hardly anyone ever sell anything to shops in person, and instead the shops just get their stuff off Yahoo Japan, hoping that from time to time some idiot sells them a Laseractive for $25 so they can get their greedy 4000% margin as some sort of bonus?

Wouldn't it be more profitable to offer fairer prices, make lower margins but with much higher turnover?

Maybe someone who lives in Japan knows about the supply chain there.

 

That sounds just like what game shops here in the US do.

 

That's the big issue for chains only in Tokyo. Savvy consumers are just selling their items straight on Yahoo and bypassing them so stock is dwindling and prices are going up.

Some places I know do buybacks all across the country where the perceived value of an item isn't so jacked up. National chains like Tsutaya and even Mandarake tend to do that and then shift the stock around as needed but it is not entirely common.

 

I think about those Hard Off and similar used goods stores. Maybe Japanese game stores stock up there and export at exorbitant prices.

 

I know that Super Potato does a pretty decent pricing job on buying...but obviously not amazing or anything. I sold a couple of things to a GEO once and they gave me a good price. I can't vouch for other places. I'm sure it depends on where you go and what you have, obviously.

 

Many stores buy stuff from Yahoo sellers. Only this week I sold a Saturn RGB cable for 1500 yen to a store in Osaka and a set of 47 used PS2 game cases to some place in Iwakuni.

 

every shop I been to boost prices really on the amount of foreigners that pass through . Most shop have roughly the same price which are usually the amazon.jp prices because even in mom and pop places in the middle of nowhere they are about the same prices. Sometimes you can find them slipping. Shops like Super Potato is extremely expensive compared to Mandrake or Traders, due to high traffic. As for where their inventories come from I have no real idea. I asked the cashier at Traders and he said, a lot of games and consoles are trade in and other than that they receive shipment from the company. I may even venture to say they have game auctions. I have been to used car auctions so game auctions wouldn't be unheard of.

 

As I said above. Many of these stores buy in bulk from Yahoo Auction sellers. I've sold to stores many a time.

 

akiba is now paying you 60'000yens for a rendering ranger..hehe.

HO prices also sky-rocket up, sometimes worser than what you would find in akiba, but good luck it's mostly an exception. but still no comparison to the almost every item for 100yens times.

 

Im sure every used game shop on the planet does the same.
Here in England we have a used game/dvd shop called CeX they give you about 20% of the price they sell them for some times even less take a look at Resident Evil 2 for Gamecube
They give you £1.50 for it and sell it for £15.00
https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=5055060950210#.U06KbFfCxIw

 

It's the only way they stay open... Near impossible to keep a store open giving people retail for what they sell to them, mainly those really needing money will sell to them... or it's stolen

 

I was standing at the checkout counter of a local non-chain game store awhile back. A guy came to sell stuff, the cashier looked up the games (mostly ps1 games in complete condition, though nothing particularly rare or valuable) and then said he was sorry but could only give the guy $1 per game. The guy simply shrugged and said "I'm not going to play them anymore" and they made the deal.

I think a lot of people can't be bothered to look up prices online, or have never sold an item on ebay or amazon and feel overwhelmed at the process. To them, the choice in their mind is: take old games you don't like to the gamestore for a few bucks, or take them to a donation place like goodwill. This is probably particularly true for people who are no longer really into gaming, or retrogaming, and the old games they had are just perceived as "junk" to them.

 

I've seen that happen before.