Topic: Retailers Selling Imported Goods

Have you ever entered to a retailer like Target, Walmart or GameStop and seen products from other regions?

These are the ones I can remember.

I'm in Mexico so naturally games would come from the US, but in recent days, the only GamePlanet (think of it as Mexico's GameStop) I can go to when I visit my sister in another city has European copies of Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, I think they were specifically Italian copies. They also had the Russian versions of the recent Game & Watch releases: the 2020 Mario one and the 2021 Zelda one.

I was tempted to buy Mario + Rabbids, but I didn't since I'm not sure if the DLC I intend to buy on the Mexican eShop will work with the European copy. If I can get a confirmation it will work, I'll get the game the next time I visit my sister.

In my area, there used to be a Gamers store that had some Japanese playing cards from 2010 based on Pokémon Black/White and I believe they also had Mario and Kirby cards as well as hanafuda cards.
On that same store during the early days of amiibo, they had a Japanese Smash Donkey Kong figure (which I nabbed since it was the last Smash DK amiibo in the city). I read that other stores in other cities also had Japanese amiibo. One store in Estado de México had a Japanese Pac-Man and another in Aguascalientes had a Japanese Smash Luigi.

Somehow during 2009-2011, some local supermarkets that don't really specialize in videogames had European DS games. Sadly those games were "shovelware".

Yeah, I'm in the US, but I distinctly remember the K-Mart in our city (back when we had one) randomly had some PAL region DS games in stock as well for whatever reason.

Outside of that I can't think of any local brick & mortar shops I've ever seen stock any imported gaming goods (I'm sure it was probably likely back when we had a couple of gaming specialty shops, but they've long since closed down/changed their business model & I haven't been in any since I was a kid).

The only places I knew that sold stuff from other regions are places that sell used games. I have seen stuff from all over at places like Gamestop and local stores that sell used games since back during the GameCube era. I figure someone just traded them in and in the case of Gamestop, the employees didn't care or know any better.

This was very common in Australia during the DS/Wii era, but the practice is virtually nonexistent nowadays.

Occasionally, the major retailers might have sold imported versions of games, but to be fair, no local version had been formally released (but a local publisher has gone through the expense to have them classified for local release). So, some third-party titles would have been imported. A Boy and His Blob (Wii) was one, and there are plenty more on DS, most of which weren't particularly great (the Tamagotchi and Castlevania games on Wii also spring to mind). The publisher would typically just paste the Aussie classification over the PEGI/BBFC rating symbols. They were almost always PAL imports, with only a handful of US imports of DS games. Kmart also sold some budget-priced niche/shovelware imports, which was how I picked up a copy of Flower, Sun, and Rain on DS.

Local retailer The Gametraders almost always sells imports, which p's me off, and I've bought very little from them over the years.

The Reject Shop used to sell imported DS games for a sensible AU$20, but weirdly, they were all unsealed, with the cartridges in the cases rather than stored behind the counter. I bought COP: The Recruit (DS) from them, however, this was one third party release that did in fact have a local release.

And Australia's last independent gaming store The Gamesmen will occasionally import out-of-print or otherwise region-exclusive games and accessories, but the majority of their stock is local. I recall them importing European copies of the 3DS Pokémon games after they had gone out of print here as well as the Middle Eastern (?) prints of the DS-era games (which were more sensibly priced).

And of course, some second-hand stock from retailers such as EB Games and CeX may include imports.

This was quite recent but I saw cleaning Kirby plush in target that has the Japanese tag on it.