Sending cool stuff back to the States?

[voltage]

Since I'm going to be in Japan for a year, a couple of my friends have asked me to buy them some cool technotokyo toys that won't be released outside of Japan for a while, like digicams or MD players or something.

How much is shipping something like a digicam to the US? And is it a hassle in terms of procedure?

This got me thinking since I probably won't have a real job that maybe I could sell a couple things on Ebay and ship it back to the states, since things won't be released back home for a while I'm thinking there will be people willing to pay a couple extra bucks (which would cover shipping and give me a little profit) for the coolest and newest toys. I'd probably only do this a few times a month just for some spare change, since you all know better than I do how expensive things are in Japan (esp. Tokyo).

Does anyone foresee any issues with this? I'd rather ask around now than start doing this and then running into problems. Of course I won't be mass exporting items back home, just maybe 3~5 things a month.

[Steve Bildermann]

maybe I could sell a couple things on Ebay and ship it back to the states, since things won't be released back home for a while I'm thinking there will be people willing to pay a couple extra bucks

Others have thought so too!

http://www.jlist.com/index.html

http://www.goodsfromjapan.com/hitech_index.html

http://www.dynamism.com/index.shtml

Good luck.

[Taro Toporific]

Others have thought so too!
http://www.jlist.com/index.html
http://www.goodsfromjapan.com/hitech_index.html
http://www.dynamism.com/index.shtml

Hee, hee, there are several FG members that, 'sell a couple things on Ebay and ship it back to the states." Like Steve B, I've dabbled in this market niche a few times. There are several "unfun" aspects for exporting bleeding-edge geek tech including:

--> No English interface --- no English manual
Dynamism.com is more like a technical translation, documentation & localization company than a J-tech goods company. If you're good in J-J localization, there FIVE TIMES more money to be made selling localization services instead of silly Internet squirting J-toilets. Sheesh.

-->Bleeding edge Japanese tech is beta-version junk is almost always needs "tweeking" to work. In Japan, people just call the store (dozens of times) to get their new-hotness J-tech to work. That super-cool, only-in-Japan stuff sadly lusted after by overseas geeks are actually just products being beta-tested of the unsuspecting and pavid Japanese consumers.

The list goes on and on, but the bottom-line is:
[b]Selling Keitai-interface vibrators, bad]:P

[Charles]

Let me give you a little parable about buying "cool stuff" for import back to the states.

I remember when I was taking classes in Japan back in 96. The hottest gadget was the new Canon Ixy camera. It was the hottest product of the season, demand was huge and you couldn't get one anywhere, even if you wanted to wait weeks and pay list price which was about 48000Y (yen was about 115 back then, about the same as now, so that's about $417US). The Ixy was still unavailable everywhere in Japan when I left, but when I got back to the states, you could buy the Ixy everywhere for under $300.

[voltage]

Interesting to know...

In any case, if I do decide to do this, I'll probably sell stuff that won't ever be released in the states. I've met some people who just love to stand out, and I'm hoping there are lots of them on Ebay!

[Socratesabroad]

Interesting to know...

In any case, if I do decide to do this, I'll probably sell stuff that won't ever be released in the states.

As others have said, I hope your Japanese is up to it. Products not for foreign release have no need for an English manual. And don't get me started on firmware/drivers/GUIs that will all be in Japanese and completely different from that on the foreign models.