I am a Japanese pachinko distributor.

[Peteybob]

Yeah that can be a challenge when exporting to the US market. In a lot of cases the shipping alone is going to be more than most want to pay for an entire machine. I do want that machine though so it is something I have to consider pretty seriously. I looked at buying a machine from Japan before and they quoted me the same shipping cost, at that time I passed. They said if I ordered a whole container (150 machines) shipping would be lower and the cost of the machine would be about half. but even then, $30,000 to import 150 machines that would take me 5 years to sell doesn't sound like a great business model on my end. :-)

Plus another 5K if customs decides to open it for inspection and the cost to get it from the port to your site. The cost's can add up really quick for a container load or just a few machines. It all comes down to how much do you want something and the availability.

Was that for a 20 or 40 foot container? Given the size of the boxes I've gotten out of Japan I could see that being a 40 footer.

[shnetinka]

We have imported 4 or 5 containers of pinball machines from Italy here in Seattle over the last couple of years. Those end up being much more expensive, and we have organized group buys. But pinball is very easy to move. Pachinko is so niche, 150 machines could take a lifetime to actually sell :-). The costs are really easy to cover with 20 - 30 pinball machines that you can sell for somewhere between $1500 and $5000 per machine. A couple hundred bucks per machine takes a lot of machines to cover that extra 5k risk.