It seems like GPU resellers are going beyond their means to grab NVIDIA’s RTX 5090s, and in light of this, a Japan local retailer has imposed an interesting sales restriction.
NVIDIA’s High-End RTX 50 GPUs Cannot Be Bought by a Tourist in Japan; Retailers In Pursuit of Blocking Sales To Resellers
The inventory situation with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 50 series isn’t great, since most of the models, particularly the higher-end ones, are either out of stock or available at absurd prices. However, in regions like Japan, there are flagship RTX Blackwell models on shelves across several retailers, likely due to demand in the area being relatively lower, and this has apparently prompted tourists to fly into the country to get their hands on a unit.
This has frustrated Japanese retailers (via MyDrivers), who have now imposed a policy that high-end GPUs cannot be sold to tourists at all, which is undoubtedly an astonishing measure. They have strictly labeled a warning under the retail shelves, saying that the GeForce RTX 5090/RTX 5080 won’t be sold to people outside Japan.
Label saying RTX 5090/RTX 5080 cannot be sold outside Japan
Initially, it was claimed that retailers blocked tax-free purchases since they are mainly intended for tourists, but that didn’t work out too well. Now, if you are a tourist and hope to purchase a GeForce RTX 5090/RTX 5080, you’ll need to fill out a “Japanese residence” test at the checkout, determining whether you are a tourist or a “legal” buyer. There are surely workarounds to this, but we won’t go into that; however, seeing this situation in Japan’s retail GPU market shows that many resellers enter the country just to sell GPUs at a higher price in their own nations.
Image Credits: MyDrivers (Automated Translation)
While this move does seem a bit odd, it is certainly something to appreciate since the Japanese retailers want SKUs to end up in the hands of the original consumers rather than resellers. Since the demand for NVIDIA’s consumer GPUs is pretty high globally, especially in nations like China, individuals are in pursuit of acquiring units by any means to later sell at inflated prices, which puts the average consumer in the backseat.
AloJapan.com