Japanese TCG Distributor

[thepokemonleague]

Hi all,
I’ve got a storefront in Australia and access to our local distributor for English cards, but not sure who can provide the Japanese versions. Just wondering who is the official distributor for Japanese pokemon packs / tcg merchandise as I noticed the general distributor list from the English website doesn’t reference to Japan:
support.pokemon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001004653-Who-are-your-wholesale-distributors-
I asked the english support for the Japanese distributor and they referenced me to pokemon.co.jp who then replied:

Thank you for reaching out to us. We print items in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Japanese items are printed by the Pokémon Company. You can view their help and support page at pokemon.co.jp. This should include some distributor information.

In the website above they have a link to - www.pokemon-card.com/ which has a contact support so I emailed them to ask about becoming a supplier in Aus and they just emailed back saying:

Regarding the inquiries, unfortunately, we do not provide information on suppliers or introductions of card game products, regardless of whether they are individuals or retailers.

Therefore, we apologize for the inconvenience, but we kindly ask you to find a toy wholesaler who handles Pokemon card game products and consult with us.

So I’m not sure who on earth supplies Japan with their stock, but I’ve exhausted most of the avenues I can think of. Surely it can’t be this difficult to obtain a wholesale supplier for Japanese stock!

I understand I can buy off ebay and probably get close to the distributor price if the purchase is bulk enough, but as a business it’s easier to just go direct if viable.
Look forward to your advice!

Thanks,

[fourthstartcg]

Long story short, there is no way to obtain a Japanese distributor.

You can try some end-arounds like contacting a local card store or someone in Japan who has a preexisting relationship with a distributor and asking them to order for you. But that will increase your prices. Japanese products are also heavily allocated right now, and I can guarantee that even if you were able to set something up, your orders would be the first to be cut.

If you’re looking for Japanese products for your store, buying them from the secondary market is going to be the best bet.

[milhouse]

The boxes say ‘For Sale in Japan only’ for a reason. There is no way to get distribution in Australia. Any Australian store front/retailer who sells or does pre orders for Japanese product does so as a dropshipping or secondary market enterprise. Which is why prices are always so ludicrously high.

[thepokemonleague]

Thanks guys @fourthstartcg, @milhouse,

I had to ask… I understand the allocation problems currently going around the world. The Aus distributor has already been heavily allocating so many pokemon items during covid and that’s not even including basic things like Ultra pro sleeves. I can only imagine what it’s like for the Japanese supplier who would inadvertently also be sending across the world via its direct Japanese retailers. Seems an interesting supply dynamic given the demand though. Was particularly hoping to lock in some supply somehow for the 25th anniversary set - gotta say it seems the Japanese trumps English for card layout. The pikachu logo really does my head in for the English variants we are seeing.

On a side not, anyone else notice the holofoil pattern of the anniversary set seems pretty similar to Rusty’s old English uncut sheet with the emtpy evolution box that he recently auctioned off on Ebay?

If you guys are happy to, and not too much to ask, if anyone wants to DM some of your preferred secondary market places that would be awesome.

Cheers,