Selling Your Stuff in Japan

Just had another first time experience here in Japan that I've wanted to try for a long time, but never knew how: selling stuff back. Basically, I had a pair of shoes I bought before my last trip here in the fall, that just absolutely hurt my feet and were taking up space. Wanted to just get rid of them! Fortunately, my fiancee's older bro was also looking to clear up some space in his closet, and knew of the place just to do that. That would be Komehyo, which has several stores located throughout the Osu shopping district in Sakae.

First of all, the buy back center (kaitori center) is located separate of the Komehyo stores, but not too hard to find. Upon walking in to the reception area, you sign up to get your papers and a number for your consultation room. The whole concept is very similar to an emergency room, with different people being "treated" for their goods their trying to unleash. Since it is kind of a big ordeal, I turned my shoes over to my to-be brother-in-law, who had brought a collection of short and long sleeve shirts, hats, a jacket, and a belt. We were grouped into the American Casual section.

Waiting was not too bad. They have a lot of magazines and newspapers lying around, and have a free tea machine that supplies very kinds of hot and cold beverages. We waited about 10 minutes until being called into our own private consulting room. We were met by a young gentleman, who decided what would be bought back and give us a price.


The goods were shown and mostly accepted, with the t-shirts and meshback hats as the only unwanted items. The agent was a trip to watch because he was working as fast as possible, scribbling notes about the items down, and periodically pounding the hell out of calculator at lightning speed.

Finally, time for my shoes came, which made the cut. More frantic pushing of the calculator, and the price came back to us: an offer for 10000 yen ($100), which I assume was non-negotiable. We accepted.


We asked about the shoes, and those were said to be worth 1000 yen ($10, later to be marked up and sold around 5000 yen). Also, when asked if a particular brand (Stussy, of which bro-in-law owns a small fortune of) was popular right now, we were given a very firm "I'm not allowed to comment about personal trends" response. Interesting!

Finally, we left the room and took our paper with us. The payout rooms are located separate from the consultation rooms, but still much the same of the private window consulting. I left at this point to go back to the reception area.


The whole selling from start to finish took about 20 minutes, but netted us a quick $100! It was a really interesting experience, and I would like to know if anyone knows of other places like this. Anyway, if you've got fashion to sell in Japan, this is a good place to try out.