I'm thinking about starting a business importing and selling Japanese cosplay items, with a particular focus on anime/hentai-style fetish stuff that's hard to get in the US - things like ultra-low rise lingerie and microbikinis, good quality maid outfits, etc. I think there's a market with all of the OF cosplayers, after hours con exhibitionists, and coomers who want to buy stuff for their GFs. I've got connections in Japan and could have a decent chunk of money to invest in this with later this year. I'd sell stuff online and attend a few cons, probably a few big west coast ones like AX as well as 18+ events like Tsumicon.I was thinking I'd carry some somewhat less lewd but still thematic stuff like thighhighs, cosplay accessories (things like Asuka hair ornaments) etc. I'm also debating stuff that's MORE lewd - my Japanese connection knows a bunch of active ero-cosplayers and I could probably import their photobooks or DVDs, maybe things like real Japanese shibari ropes, sex toys, etc. but I'm not as sure about that since it can't be displayed openly at regular cons. What does /cgl/ think? Would anybody here be interested in buying things like I'm talking about? Do you have any other ideas for items that are available in Japan but hard to get in the US and would be worth stocking?
>imported japanese clothing & goodsMost of it will not fit western people. Maybe teenagers could wear it. pic relatedAnd that's not including other sizes like bust/waist/hip sizes.It will be extremely niche unless you tailor the sizes for non-Japanese.Hell even my ex-gf made me try some Japanese condoms and they were too tight and small, and I'm 6 inches.
>>10926289I've definitely considered the sizing issue, but Japanese Ls and XLs do exist and I think the kinds of people who are likely to buy this stuff are more likely to be relatively skinny anyway, like just taking AX's Westin party as an example, more of the girls I saw walking around in lewd skimpy outfits were tiny skinny Asian girls than anything else. Cosplayers who put lewd stuff online tend more in that direction as well. Also, I'd probably try to stock options with more flexibility, stuff that ties at the side and so on, and I'd be stocking other things where size isn't an issue as well. I also know from personal experience that a 5'5" 115lb American girl fits fine in Japanese panties from the brands I'm looking at stocking.
>>10926280I would be interested! I would also stock some of the cuter frilly style japanese undies, since I know they have made sanrio bra/panty sets that are quite hard to buy in the u.s.
>>10926339Yeah, I was definitely thinking about having more conventional underwear as well, and the Sanrio stuff would make sense if I could find it. The one hangup I have though is that, if the bras are real bras with structure it becomes a lot harder to stock since they're so much more size-specific and don't pack up as well for shipping.
>>10926280fund it
this is a rlly cute idea u should def go thru with it, and if you chose to expand to bigger sizes or plus sizes after a while (assuming you didnt have enough to invest into that in the start) u could become a real staple, like moeflavor!
>>10926455Larger sizes are definitely something that makes sense, but I'm not sure what it's going to take to get them, at this point the plan is to just resell existing stuff from Japanese brands and not actually have my own stuff manufactured, which I think would be impossible to do at the right quality for the right price with the volume I'm likely to be doing.
>>10926316You might want to relabel the sizes lol
>>10926280there is 100% a huge market for this. get started already op!!!!!
>>10926280At 120 I did not fit Japanese clothes. Your audience will be very niche because Asians have nothing for hips and are a foot shorter compared to Western girls.I'm not 120 anymore and I'm certainly not fitting any of their clothes now. If you believe those stats about the average American woman being 180ish...good luck
>>10926316>>10926593If your actually planning on this skip the sizes completely and list everything in cm
>>10926541>I'd sell stuff online>resell existing stuff from Japanese brands so... a shopping service. You're being a shopping service. Except instead of letting people buy whatever, they buy fetish stuff. It's one thing to actually have to pay for a storefront or booth, but what are you actually offering? Do you plan to order and review these items yourself? I think having an "ease of use" website is definitely a good idea, but since you're not manufacturing, your customer base will be pretty limited and the stuff you can do will too. You would ultimately end up being somewhat responsible for the products if you're buying and reselling without having a deal with the brands, meaning all customer service issues would fall onto you. That, and most people are the "search amazon for garbage" type or the "learn japanese and use an SS all for my waifu dreams" type.
>>10926821I'd be buying stock and keeping it in the US, and I'd have con booths as well as selling online. I have experience with ecommerce and event booths, and connections in Japan so I'm not going into this blindly. I might try to act as a distributor for some of these companies too and maybe get them into stores like Dolls Kill where they could have a market outside the con/cosplay scene. The fetishy stuff with sizing issues isn't all I'd be stocking either, but I'm trying to keep things somewhat thematic, basically anything that would appeal to weeb girls that like to wear "sexy-cute" stuff - from maid outfits to socks to hair accessories, bags, pretty much anything other than shoes (because they're bulky, expensive, and come in a billion sizes) and want the real Japanese shit instead of shitty Chinese knockoffs, and if I can get wholesale deals the pricing won't even really be any worse than the Amazon garbage.
>>10926925The stuff you’re trying to market to weeb girls isn’t really that hard to find, even the “authentic” versions if you know how to use google or a shopping service. Ultimately I think you’re overestimating how many of them actually care about aUtHeNtIc JaPaNeSe PaNtIeS.That being said, I think you could still make decent sales in person at cons. A lot of people go into cons ready to splurge a little and are willing to buy something just because it’s right in front of them in that moment. Just make sure you have the largest sizes you can find on hand at cons
>>10926280call it pant.su
>>10926925I am now imagining a scenario of you drowning in debt because you bought piles of kawaii meido outfits and panties which is a hilarious image but like >>10926932Said your best bet is cons where people are ready and primed to spend. A big question you should be asking is whether those brands even give a fuck to distribute outside of japan.
>>10926280You'll do dramatically better selling general cosplay accessories as the core of your foundation with lingerie as a side hustle, even if you are primarily doing it for 18+ purposes. I'd even go so far as to figure out things like wigs or just general underwear with specific themes, because the kind of weebs who would spend money on these are not any of the ones you listed. OF models who do cosplay lewds trend towards either the absolute height of laziness (just a vaguely similarly-colored wig with the same Victoria's Secret lingerie they use in 90% of their sets) or buy a full Taobao cosplay and chop it up into a "lewd" version, and thus would only need components and accessories to sell the full image if they care enough. Exhibitionist weebs generally just do not wear anything, and the sexy lingerie they wear in Japan is mostly in actual JAVs. There's also an issue with trying to sell it to weebs in relationships, because unless the one wearing it specifically picks it out AND they are in a sex-heavy relationship where this kind of stuff comes up frequently, there's a strong chance it'll be rejected on any number of levels going from it simply not being financially viable all the way up to fetishwear not fitting into their relationship(much harder to sell with two minds rather than one). The honest ideal would be selling general character accessories to feed into the lazier side of content creators, as well as benefitting cosplayers who have generalized wardrobe malfunctions or missing components at the time of the con so they can quickly get back into their cosplay and keep moving, and pairing that with your latter suggestion of things like ropes for shibari, sex toys, porn, etc. so you can hit both angles very well. I can see something as simple as red hair clips for a Kobeni cosplay selling out maybe a dozen times faster than even one micro-bikini at a con, even just for the pornographic material.
this is a terrible idea. 99% of that stuff is already available anyway as it's from china. not only is japan not going to wholesale domestic made products to a random western nobody(even with a "connection", but japanese made products are much more expensive than chinese ones. the market for sexy weeb lingerie is already full and isn't at cons for a reason.
>>10927281I think you’re missing the bigger picture anon. Most of these items do exist via Chinese sources to but there nowhere near as high quality as the og and can fall apart easy. You’d be surprised at the amount of people who just buy from overpriced American sellers because it’s more convenient then waiting weeks for a few items, or they do it because they’re unaware of shopping services. Even if lingerie doesn’t work there’s still so many opportunities with other jp items.
>>10926280Genuine question but does anyone find what the girl in OPs image is wearing attractive? I feel like it makes her already small ass look smaller and flatter. Maybe I'm just not the target audience for this stuff.
>>10927257I think there's more of a market than you think. Those exhibitionist weebs definitely exist and they DO wear stuff, go to any of the post-AX nightlife stuff and there are tons of girls walking around in lingerie, micro bikinis, or very revealing costumes, and I actually spoke to a number of them and they were all enthusiastic at the idea of getting stuff that was really Japanese and looked more like what's depicted in anime. That's at a mainstream con too, go somewhere like that 18+ con in Vegas and it's crawling with potential customers.It's also worth pointing out that this stuff isn't all that expensive, especially with the weak yen, and my selling price wouldn't be much different than what you pay for brand-name domestic lingerie or Chinese stuff bought through a shopping service.I would definitely have a more diverse selection including things like hairclips and other accessories though. I also have a somewhat prominent Japanese illustrator/character designer already lined up to collab on some products.>>10927281Finding stuff that even has the correct cuts to match what you see in anime or Asian ero-cosplay is damn near impossible. The vast majority of the "anime-style" stuff you can find listed in English, even on the Asian websites, is cut like typical Western stuff and just has vaguely anime-themed print fabric or whatever. >>10927396fwiw I picked something really tame and not all that flattering just because this is a blue board and I didn't want the OP to be TOO provocative.
>>10926280Have you been to Japan OP? Their *sexy cosplay* ranges from the cheap costumes at Don Quijote to mid/expensive harajuku.I also feel there's a misconception they are all super sexual cosplayers there that buy what you want to sell. Sure sex isn't taboo in amerifart land but they are conservative even in cosplay just saying. You may find the quality of clothes to be actually not as great you think.More importantly what is your business model going to be? This is one case a brick and mortar boutique will matter. ITT: Still Live in Japan and considered doing something like this.
>>10927447I have, multiple times. I also have worked in the anime merchandise industry for a Japanese company and was an exhibitor at Comiket etc. with them. I have Japanese friends/colleagues in the industry and have already discussed this idea with a few who are currently in the US because of AX, and they're enthusiastic about the idea. I'm well aware that this stuff wouldn't appeal to the majority of the cosplay scene here as well, I'm a retired cosplayer myself and most of my friends and exes are cosplayer, but I also think the niche has become large enough to support a business catering to it. I also think it'd have some crossover into ravers etc. I think a brick and mortar boutique would be difficult, though. The only place one would really make sense is in one of the major California cities, and the cost of living and doing business there is so high that I don't think it's viable. My plan as it stands would be to have booths at cons, plus online sales, and maybe to try and distribute to existing brick and mortar businesses that specialize in J-fashion or sexy club/festival wear etc.
>>10926280low leg panties are extremely hot desu. I love seeing them in hentai manga and JAV
>>10927418> go to any of the post-AX nightlife stuff and there are tons of girls walking around in lingerie, micro bikinis, or very revealing costumesNever went to a con before. Just regular clubbing and parties. Where does the better nightlife happen usually? Talking about actual parties with slutty weeb chicks, not just a bunch of smelly men group drinking in a hotel room.
>>10927418Worked for Walmart a long time ago. We did a survey about organic food. I don't remember the exact numbers but it came down to like 100% will answer yes they want heathier organic food. Then they bought this line called wild oats and started offering it. Then when kraft is 1$ and the organic one is 1.25 your enthusiastic yes we want better people dropped to around 30% over a 25cent price difference. Items with bigger price gaps had less and less buy with some items like cake mixes that could have a 5$ price difference for whatever reason had almost 0 pickup.Good on ya for doing market research but people in a non private setting will agree with just about anything until money is involved.
Depending on how you go about this, it could be a semi-profitable small business venture if you're smart about it. The reality is that most slutty cosplayers are buying cheap pre-made chinese cosplays and they really don't give a shit about it being from Japan or wherever the fuck. They just care about the aesthetic. I'd suggest spending some time browsing these slutty cosplay merchants sites (uwowo cos, doki doki, miccostumes, etc) and see how their product range compares to your potential product range. They're mostly cosplay retailers but they all do offer some lingerie and slutty cosplay options. Maybe even order a few items to have a direct comparison between your stock and theirs. Compare your potential price points to theirs and see if yours is really higher quality, or at the very least ensure that the quality difference is tangible enough to the average consumer that it would be worth paying your price vs your competitor.I think the idea of buying a small amount of inventory and selling at cons in the US could be highly profitable if your inventory is actually unique and high quality. There's probably less success to be found for you in the e-comm space because there's just so much competition, but I think you could make some decent money in person at cons, especially ones with after hours events.
>>10926280aliexpress already exists for that and so do imported japanese goods/proxy sellers if they want higher quality (they don’t)anyone telling you to do it is gaslighting you into financial loss
>>10927314Anon is saying that the "Japanese" items are made in China anyway. Do you even use rakuten/ali/taobao? All of the sexy cosplay is Chinese made even in Japan. Most items made in Japan are going to be pricey and even more expensive for a gaijin. Plus 99% of dealers at cons have access to factories.
>>10927672>>10927747One thing I'll say is that I know for certain that quite a few cosplayers have been buying Predatorrat stuff, because it's the famous Japanese brand and the one that has easy international shipping, and they're WAY more expensive than the stuff I'd be carrying, which generally runs 1000-2000 yen compared to predatorrat's 3,300 yen and up plus the shopping service fees and cost of international shipping.
>>10927453none of this stuff you mentioned is still a thing, how old are you 45?
>>10928018>$30 is way more than $20 confirmed retard. also cosplayers buy things that are popular in general it has little to do with branding. your biggest problem is being a huge weeb and not realizing that japan has no pedigree as far as quality especially at less than $100
>>10928017You'd be surprised, most of the stuff I'm looking at carrying IS made in Japan, and it's not as expensive as you'd expect, with current exchange rates retail is generally in about the $7-$13 USD range, even marked up to $15-20 that's not really any worse than a lot of Victoria's Secret stuff and way cheaper than specialty lingerie brands. It's not $3 or whatever like the stuff you can get direct from China, but none of the Chinese stuff really has that Japanese style, it's all cut like generic American stuff and just here on /cgl/ alone I've seen multiple threads/posts in recent months from people who are trying to find accurate-looking low rise stuff for characters from gacha games etc. that have them.
>>10928020That's more like $20 vs. $45 by the time you're done with fees and international shipping. >>10928019Late 30s, but what the fuck are you talking about? The events on the badges I posted are all still going strong and I'm not sure what else I mentioned that you're saying isn't a thing anymore.
>>10928022SOLD in Japan and MADE in Japan are not the same thing, you clearly don't understand that. Also you obviously don't use taobao/ali. Post pics of these alleged "made in Japan" items and i guarantee i will find the actual source. I think your Japanese "connections" are playing you for $$.
>>10928023you really earnestly believe you are somehow going to be able to retail items at cons for less than they retail in japan itself? what a retard. items from japan that are already sold here retail for more because it costs money to get them here, money to booth at a con and money to buy the product. you're naive on all fronts.
>>10928023God your autistic and respond to every post.
>>10928026It means they're really convinced this is a good idea.Yo anon it tried selling Japanese stockings at a con once. Thank God it wasn't the only thing on my table because not a single pair sold. Americans are too fat they don't fit.
>>10928024I absolutely know what made in Japan means. The brands I'm looking at, like Turkey and La-Pomme, as well as retailers who sell them domestically like Deep-P, clearly state that these things are made there on their websites. I've also spent quite a bit of time going through Ali and other sites that sell direct from Asia and there's nothing even similar there. >>10928025I never said that. The yen is in the shitter, the prices I quoted are around a 50% markup. >>10928031I'm not even that convinced, I just think people are making faulty arguments. I'm also fully aware that the stuff I'm talking about can only be a portion of what the booth would sell, and a bit part of the point of the thread was that I need to figure out more stuff that makes sense to import and sell. I've got these Japanese connections, I know my way around over there and speak enough to get by, and I've got funding of my own and some potential investors and partners lined up, so I'm looking for things that I can get that other people can't or don't, and I mentioned both the lingerie and maid outfits because they're both things that I have seen people trying to find and complaining that they can't get, including people who've bought them in Japan and wish they could get more.I also think people are overstating the sizing issues. Yeah, we've got a lot of fat people in America, but that's not everybody and if you go to a con like AX and look around, a large percentage of the cosplayers there and ESPECIALLY the ones wearing more revealing stuff are skinny enough to fit into a Japanese M or L fine. I also think they're overestimating the pricing too, Japan has been doing off-the-rack cosplay a lot longer than other countries and they've got pricing down to shockingly reasonable levels on a lot of stuff, sure it's not gonna be on par with the bargain basement stuff that's basically made of tissue paper, but it's not far off from the better Chinese stuff, especially with the weak yen.
>>10928031if he thinks it's such a good idea why is he asking on /cgl/ of all places?
>>10928034>I've also spent quite a bit of time going through Ali and other sites that sell direct from Asia>thERe'S nOThiNg eVeN siMiLaR tHEre.
>>10928034You're overstating the alleged difficulty of acquiring this stuff. Selling JP items domestically outside of JP is a dead market because it's so so easy to aquire them online and it's not worth the hassle of going through some shitty 3rd party seller, especially at a con of all places. It has been easy to use SS for at least a decade and this stuff isn't costly enough to deter people from spending a bit on fees so they don't have to be ogled by mouth breathing neckbeards like you while picking out their lingerie. You claim to have all this so-called investor interest but are posting your entire business plan on /cgl/ (a place that definitely loves and is comprised of costhots) and insist on replying to every post because you actually have no plan or investors and have nothing better to do that try to get confirmation bias from a bunch of incel weebs on a dead website(atleast I hope so, because otherwise this will be extremely embarrassing if you do somehow snag a dealer booth).
>male in his 30s>claiming to be the authority on japan>only knowledge about japan is from porn>thinks japanese versions of things are superior even if they're shit>types like a redditor>replies to every post>extreme autism>pulling "facts" out of his ass>acting busy and worldly despite camping the board 24/7gal safari, that you?
I hope your family decapitates you and uses your skull for hotpot
>>10928071isn't this just a cheap ripoff of predator rat
>>10928071these girls asses be lookin like picrel.
>>10928156yes but OP is a weeb retard who thinks it's impossible to get this shit outside grorious nippon. thots don't care if they're wearing a knockoff.
>>10928034O like how easy you think it is to get a booth at large cons. I know the people that run akon in tx they throw out hundreds of applications for tables. You want in you gotta have an.edge event if that means buying bulk tables and a full page ad in the booklet so they even look at you. For a grand con like you keep mentionjng you'll be 4k in just to get a room and table before you sell one panty. You'll be mitigated to 200$ tables at tiny cons and have a hoard.of.stock that goes no where because there's not enough skinny coswhores at a small con to run profit and not enough at a big con to makr table.
>>10928192Nayrt but why are you guys so caught up in the con idea? For items like this it’d be way more profitable to sell online, that way more petite people can view it and isn’t limited to the people that attend cons. There’s no reason for the main selling point to be lingerie, especially if replicas are available everywhere (and the demand for the original designs isn’t popular). In my opinion, Japanese fashion would be much more profitable; there’s a lot of brands that aren’t sold outside of japan and they aren’t popular enough for replicas to be widely available (i.e. aliexpress and taobao). If anon is serious about making money, they need to branch out and stop looking in places that are already dried up.
>>10928226Because he doesn't offer anything that an ss or japanese site of the brand wouldn't already do. It's devilinspired but without the massive amount of marketing they did to push to nooblitas who don't know how to use a search bar, and for coomers. It's not original, he has little startup capital to invest in marketing because he's one person and not a huge company, it's not quite a specialty service because there's no custom products, and it's not easily accessible either because the cost is a bit higher- on top of the market not being there for it. Realistically at some point you have to ask: what would this business offer to make it profitable versus the cost of operating and the effort put in? Am I selling something people need or want? If he's so stuck on selling socks or thongs, the only angle you can go at from this perspective is being able to see and touch the product in a space curated with people primed for spending. I agree with you on japanese indie fashion but it requires taste and careful curating, which... it's a guy on cgl, nonna.
>>10928226anon the OP is just gal safari, a known attention whore male. He's talking out of his ass to try to get people to interact with him. He knows nothing about jfash and can't get access to any of the things he's claiming, let alone good brands. He's the one obsessed with tabling cheap thongs at cons.
>>10926280>>10928071i've been AI generating "high rise thong" for so long when ultra low rise was always where it's at... my eyes have been opened.
>>10926280the only way this will work is if you have really good marketing but sometimes that’s just as hard as running the whole business or even harder and it costs money. advertising and sending free stuff to influencers costs a lot of money. managing social media is time-consuming and not everyone is good at it. even if the items are affordable when marked up, you will have to sell a lot of them or you won’t be able to run the business much less get much profit. i like good quality jfashion but there is nothing that stands about pic related and its so incredibly niche that the kind of people who like this stuff probably already know how to get it themselves. when starting a business it’s always best to experiment with little risk. so you should start selling a few items on depop, it might help to list some standout more coveted items at a higher markup to get people’s attention which can give your items lots of likes. That will drive more people to check out your shop to see what else you have. also use words like “authentic” and “genuine” and use “made in japan” only if it is.
