I’m planning to build a desktop PC. I noticed the prices e.g. Amazon JP & Yodobashi Camera, that GPUs ,CPUs, storage etc. tends to be near double in price compared to US stores. I’m not so sure why this is the case and I’m looking for other options when sourcing out parts for my build.
I guess PC building is kinda niche here in Japan. I’m hoping someone here could share some places (stores or website) where we could find reasonably priced PC parts
6 comments
I usually buy them from Mercari or rakuma,
Do a search on why prices are higher. It invokes a distributor middle man named ASK and how they control all.
With regards to pricing, Yodobashi is usually +10% higher to cover points they give you. Amazon JP doesn’t get whole lot of stock and when they do it sells out quick so the launch day selection is sub par.
In the end it’s Tsukumo, pasokon Kobo, dospara, and ark are the 4 shops that you will end up doing most of your parts shopping. They are coinvielty located on one back street in Akihabara. I say this because they all have absolutely horrible websites from 2002 and crash all the time during gpu/cpu launches. Also the store pricing is better with most promos being store only. Its not great but I kind of like going to Akihabara and walking the shops and buying parts. It’s a lot better than dealing with Newegg customer service
My favorite is Tsukumo. But I always compare prices first. On Kakaku usually you can compare prices.
You could buy from amazon.com, even with international shipping + import duty some things could end up being cheaper if its on sale and so on. Sometimes it doesn’t really matter tho…
Example: WDS100T3B0C now $70 on amazon.com with $10.36 shipping to Japan, making it $80.36 or 10864 JPY, while [kakaku.com listing](https://kakaku.com/item/K0001395859/) shows same thing for 10980 available but that’s kinda on sale, next lowest is 11,160 so… you could potentially “save” ~500-1000 yen by doing amazon order and waiting a couple weeks, but you’d have more problems if it was DoA and you had to return it etc… Usually unless the difference is significant it’s probably not worth it.
Also, make sure you look for *domestic* versions of a product, some specific motherboards/etc are made for U.S. or EU market and if you look up that model # on amazon.jp etc it’ll be listed as 並行輸入 (parallel import) and usually a very high price. Usually a similar named model will be for JP market at a “normal” price.
I think it’s hopeless personally. I will just pick up parts next time I am in Taiwan. Taiwan is maybe 5-10% more expensive than the prices in the states.
I second the motion about Amazon US. Oddly, Amazon US ships to a very good local carrier in Japan. You can call the driver and schedule your delivery time. (I live in Okinawa.)
Amazon, Japan ships to a warehouse in Okinawa. Your package will be delivered whenever they get to it and whether you are home or not.
There is the small issue of shipping time and import fees. But even so, it is usually cheaper than buying on the Japanese economy.
**One other note: If your income is in US Dollars, you get a good exchange rate buying Japanese Yen. Recently, the exchange rate was ¥135 to $1.00 (It changes daily.)