How to Buy Used Clothing in Japan and Resell It in the U.S. for Profit
Japan might be one of the best-kept sourcing secrets in clothing resale. For years, resellers in the know have been picking up vintage Levi’s, designer pieces, and selvedge denim from Tokyo thrift stores and reselling them in the United States for several times what they paid. The good news is that the opportunity is real and is a great option for retail arbitrage. The bad news is that it has gotten a lot more complicated over the past year because of tariffs, duty, and other trade issues.
Why Resellers Love Japan
There are four main reasons that savvy resellers lean on Japan for sourcing used clothing:
- Condition. Japanese secondhand culture prizes waste reduction and they take care of used items. Everything will be in better shape than you would typically find in North America.
- Inventory. Decades of imported American vintage items sit next to local denim and designer apparel. What might be rare and expensive here could be common and affordable in Japan.
- Scale. Japan’s biggest secondhand chain has over 900 stores, with close to 100 of those being in Tokyo alone. There are neighborhoods with dozens of thrift stores.
- Exchange rates. Purchases in yen are favorable right now compared to the U.S. dollar.
What to Buy
The math still only works if you buy the right items. Shipping is also a big consideration, so you want to prioritize high value items with lower weight.
The reliable winners tend to be Japanese denim (e.g. Kapital, Visvim, Evisu), vintage designer clothes, 90s and Y2K streetwear, vintage band t-shirts, and classic American brands. Skip the generic, cheap pieces. And unless you can resell something for at least three times your cost after taxes, shipping, duty, and any other costs, it’s not worth picking something up.
How to Buy
Certainly the most fun way to buy items from Japan is to visit in person. Stop by Tokyo neighborhoods like Shimokitazawa, Koenji, and Harajuku, all of which have an active thrift market and dozens of great stores. Flea markets are worth a visit if you can time your trip properly, but bring cash. For regular thrift stores, take your passport with you, as many of them offer tax-free shopping for tourists.
It’s also possible to source items from Japan online. Many Japanese resale platforms (e.g. Mercari Japan, Yahoo Auctions, Rakuma) won’t sell or ship to non-Japanese addresses, but there are a variety of proxy buying services you can use that will collect packages for you and then reship them to America. The big three are Buyee, ZenMarket, and Neokyo. Fees vary, so make sure you check each option and see what works best for you.
Getting Purchases Home
Whether you shop in-person or through a proxy, you’ll need a way to get it back to your home address. One option is a package forwarder, who will consolidate all of your purchases into one box and then ship it overseas for you. Services like Tenso, Blackship, and White Rabbit Express can help here.
Make sure you check and confirm that any items you purchase are allowed to be imported into the U.S. What’s allowed and the associated tariffs can change at a moment’s notice.
The Tariff Reality
Importing from Japan was a lot easier before 2025, and any guides written before then no longer apply. For years, resellers could use an $800 “de minimimis” exemption to bring in low-value parcels duty-free. That’s gone, with no indication it will ever return, and on top of that, there’s a temporary 10% import surcharge on nearly everything. That rate and what’s affected change often under the current administration, so check the latest information before you make purchases and bring goods into the United States.
You will have to be careful about duty classifications too. Genuinely worn, used clothing shipped in bulk can qualify as duty-free, but customs often reclassifies it as regular apparel, where current duties can be as high as 32%. That’s a huge difference, so sometimes a conversation with a customs broker or checking current CBP rules is worthwhile.
If you’re in Canada
The rules in Canada are mostly stable and haven’t changed in years, where GST/HST and any applicable duty must be paid on items entering the country. Fortunately, Canada has a free trade agreement with Japan, so in many cases there won’t be any duty on qualifying goods.
There is one thing to watch out for: If you have a longer visit to Japan for sourcing, the $800 allowance for bringing goods back into the country duty-free covers items that are for personal use only. If you bring inventory back to flip, it’s a commercial import and must be reported as such. That means bringing things back in your suitcase saves you shipping costs, but not duty.
How to Get Started
There’s definitely a learning curve and some set-up required, but you can try out your first simple flip from your couch in a few hours. Pick one high-margin category to start, see what’s for sale on Japanese resale platforms, compare sold comps on eBay and other platforms so you know the real resale value, open a proxy account, buy a few test items, have them shipped to a consolidator, then import them into the U.S. Post them on the most suitable domestic platform for the item type, then see how much you can earn from the sales.
If things go well, you might want to plan a trip, especially around temple market dates. Keep every receipt, and treat your first sourcing attempts as an experiment. Whatever you do, make sure to keep an eye on the latest import rules and the always do the math before making buying decisions.
Happy thrifting!
