December 1, 2007. Early morning on this day, hundreds of gadget shops in Japan started releasing the long-awaited Nintendo Wii Fit to eager fans.

Still pitch dark in the small hours, people queued up in front of shops quietly. In Shinjuku area where several giant electronic outlets cut each other's throat, the line of people stretched to hundreds of meters by the time of 0930 hours, the opening time of Wii Fit Derby.

Wii Fit Balance Board, the cult gadget.

What an assortment of people! Young men chatting loudly in funny languages... er, at least not in the local language called Japanese. And many scruffy middle-aged to old folk who obviously haven't been to a bath for some time. Some had visible signs of living rough on the street.

One common feature. None of them showed even the slightest interest in Wii Fit itself. They had nothing to do with fitness or entertainment by computer games. When the gate was raised, they were quietly and orderly swallowed into the shops. After a few minutes, they emerged one by one, each of them carrying a large paper shopping bag. Sure, the Wii Fit package with its logo.

They marched to a street corner behind the shop. There, a couple of nondescript vans were parked, their rear doors flapping open. Shoppers delivered the Wii Fit package to an attendant of the van and received some cash from him. A quick and passionless transaction.

Wii Fit in the shopping bag, "buyers" rush back to their operator.

Shoppers then rushed back to the shop. Of course, to buy another Wii Fit again. Again and again. And again.

Soon, the vans were filled up with hundreds of Wii Fits and quietly vanished from the street scene. Presumably gone to the cargo section of Narita airport. Thence directly to Hong Kong within the day. From HK into the sea of vast Chinese market.

"Buyers" deliver their Wii Fit to operator's van.

Sure enough. Wii Fits appeared on a Chinese Net auction site the very same evening, fetching almost 1,500 yuan (US$205). It was bought in Japan in the morning at 8,800 yen (US$79).

You are watching the lively operation of unofficial logistic channel, extremely well-organized and very much legal... except for some annoying tax laws. Obviously, the Japanese taxmen haven't caught up with them yet.

Since almost all the fascinating and innovative gadgets are released first in Japan (sometimes sold only in Japan) and never distributed to pirate-infested seas of Asia, this unofficial channel has a chance to flourish.

Some operators (mostly Chines, Koreans and the likes) start recruiting homeless people and the urban poor (both local Japanese and Asian youths) and organize them as "buyers". On the day of the sale, the army of these buyers surround the gadget shops and buy up the target goods as long as the stock remains. With the cash supplied by operators.

Commission is pretty thin, around 500 yen (US$4.45) a piece for the buyer. But buyers can keep on buying the goods many times. With the full day's shoppings spree, most of the "buyers" repeat the buying around 40 or more times!

Sure, operators run the risk. "Buyers" might run off with money. So a horde of bouncers have to be placed at several strategic locations. Since quite a few buyers are illegals (visa overstayers, outright snakehead wetbacks), a single police caution could annihilate the whole operation.

Anyway, the destination of the Wii Fit black channel ends in China. But Nintendo Wii does not exist in China, at least officially. No worries, folks. Due to the utmost effort of buyers and operators, Chinese customers with enough dough can buy Wii easily. According to the unofficial statistics, around 20,000 Wiis have been thus "exported" to China alone in 2006. 2007? Who knows!

 

cheewee
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kaisei1
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