Are you a fan of Pokemon and want the latest releases before anyone else? Or perhaps you're after limited edition Japan-only Pokemon merch?
Then you’ve come to the right place!
A lot of Pokemon products are only ever released in Japan and often exclusively sold on the official Japanese Pokemon Center website.
This includes seasonal and limited-edition Pokemon plush toys, Pokemon smartphone cases and accessories, Pokemon bags, Pokemon trading cards, Pokemon clothing and apparel, Pokemon video games, Pokemon stationery, and almost everything else Pokemon you can think of.
They even sell Pokemon food!
You used to have to travel to the Pokemon Center in Tokyo to get your hands on the limited merch they have available but as expected, they got too popular.
As such, more and more Pokemon Centers started popping up in all of Japan's major cities such as the Pokemon Center Osaka, Pokemon Center Kyoto, Pokemon Center Yokohama, and many more. All stores are designed to follow the theme of a legendary Pokemon, whose lore is related to that specific store's location.
For example, Ho-oh can be found in the Kyoto Pokemon Center;
while the Red Gyarados from Pokemon Gold, Silver & Crystal versions can be found in the Hiroshima Pokemon Center.
Again, they were still too popular.
So finally, the Pokemon Center launched online. Just one problem - they only ship to Japan.
Don't worry! That's where ZenMarket comes in! There’s no need to travel all the way to Japan to buy the Pokemon goods you want from Japan!
With our service, you can buy any Pokemon item your heart desires and get it delivered anywhere in the world.
Ordering from the Pokemon Center Tutorial
As the site is entirely in Japanese, it may be hard for those who do not understand Japanese, and that’s why we are here to help you. Here is our quick guide of how to find products on the official Japanese Pokemon Center online store.
We have an English version of the page built into ZenMarket to help you navigate the website - note that links still go to the Pokemon Center website. We'll explain why in just a bit.
See English Pokemon Center Page
If you would prefer to browse the site yourself in Japanese, see below:
Step 1. Navigating the Japanese Pokemon Center Website
This is the homepage. You should be able to see 5 tabs located near the top of the page to the right of a Pokeball logo.
From left to right the tabs say:
1. “New Releases”
2. “Search By Campaign”
3. “Search By Category”
4. “Search by Pokemon”
5. “Top Sellers”
Click on the tab that interests you the most, then click on the banner or product that you would like to take a closer look at.
Serious collectors after the latest Pokemon items from the Pokemon Center should select New Releases (新商品) but for most other people, searching by category or by Pokemon is the best way to go.
If you click or hover over “Search By Category” you will see 14 different categories appear. Going from left to right here are the translations of each category, please refer to the image below to see what Japanese word it corresponds with.
- Plushies & Other Toys
- Video Games
- Trading Cards
- Stationery
- Daily Necessities
- Kitchen Goods
- Smartphone/PC Goods
- Trinkets & Accessories
- Bags, pouches & wallets
- Clothing
- CD/DVD
- Tickets (sadly as a Japanese proxy we are unable to sell these)
- Food
- Books
As you could imagine, browse by Pokemon enables you to select a single Pokemon and view all the products available for that Pokemon. This is pretty useful but given the sheer number of Pokemon there are, the Pokemon Center have included a filter based on the starting character of a Pokemon's name.
This seems helpful, except the Pokemon's names are in Japanese, so be sure to look up the Japanese name for your target Pokemon on Bulbapedia or elsewhere before you start looking.
Also Read: 5 HANDY TOOLS TO FIND JAPANESE PRODUCTS WITHOUT KNOWING JAPANESE
Step 2. Browsing the product page for Pokemon Merch
Once you have found an item that takes your fancy, click on the product and the item’s page will appear.
In the above example, you can see that we have highlighted two bits of the item’s description, the price and the number of purchases per customer.
The price for the item is 4,860 JPY. The maximum number of boxes that can be purchased is 5 boxes.
TIP: If you want to try reading this, it may be beneficial to open the page in Google Chrome, right-click and choose "Translate to English" from the menu to automatically translate the webpage.
Some rare items on the Pokemon Online Store are limited to one person per account, so we will be able only to buy one piece of those products.
Once we reach our purchase limit for a store, we will no longer be able to purchase the product.
HOWEVER...
We would strongly recommend seeking out alternative stores for limited merchandise, as Pokemon is incredibly popular. For example, if ZenMarket reached our purchase limit on the Pokemon Center website, but the Pokemon Company listed the same item on Rakuten or Yahoo! Shopping we could purchase from those stores as the Pokemon Center website purchase limit does not apply to purchases made from other sites.
Separate limits may apply to those other stores.
If you scroll down the page slightly you will see more technical information about the product itself, such as size, weight, product code, product material, and country of manufacture.
To roughly calculate the cost of international shipping fees, it is recommended that you take note of the weight and dimensions of the item/s you are going to order.
3. Adding the Product to Your Cart in ZenMarket
The next step works best if you already have a ZenMarket account. If you don't have a ZenMarket account yet, you can sign up now for a more seamless experience when you order. It's free, and only takes a few seconds.
Sign Up Now!
To place your order, you do not need to register on the Pokemon Center online site or add any of the products into your cart there. If you do, there will be no way to make the purchase without a Japanese payment method or shipping address.
Also Read: PITFALLS OF JAPAN ONLINE SHOPPING & HOW TO AVOID THEM
Instead, all you have to do is copy the item’s URL and paste it into ZenMarket’s search bar like down below.
The item page will then load on the ZenMarket website. If you are planning to purchase an item that has several different sizes, colors, or models, please write a description of the item that you would like. This will save time when purchasing your item.
Once you've finished entering any relevant information, click the Add button.
On occasion, the ZenMarket website will be unable to read the page for a given product. In these cases, a modal will appear instead of the translated product page.
If you take the above steps with the modal (i.e enter any details, then click add) it will still work as if you had clicked Add to cart.
This will prompt ZenMarket staff to check the item's availability, price and whether it can be shipped internationally (i.e it is not a prohibited item). This process can take between 10 minutes to 1 business day depending on order volumes as well as access to information on the supplier's website.
In cases where support need to contact the seller for a particular piece of information, this can take longer, as we need to wait for the supplier to send us a response.
When your item has been checked, you will be able to pay for the item. You will receive a notification via email, explaining the next process of adding funds to your cart. Once your funds have been added to your ZenMarket account, you can click pay from “My Account” to pay for your items.
Once you have paid for the item, our customer support to make the purchase for you. The order will then be shipped to the ZenMarket warehouse where we can combine it for free with parcels from other orders you may have made, or simply prepare it for international shipping.
Check out our guide on shipping a parcel with ZenMarket.
We hope this guide was helpful to you. If you have any other questions, feel free to send us a message via the user panel of your account.
Happy shopping and catch them all!
