Hello,
I don't mind answering that question :
Personaly, I add a small amount (around $3) to
the price I paid the cel to cover the expense
to get it (flight, hotel, customs fee). Naturaly,
that mean that I have to get _a lot_ of cels and
sell most of them...
Then I added my margin to get the final price
like it's done with any other produces.

Of course, sometime I may get a very good deal
and so take a bigger margin. But that only
compensate for all the time when I have to take
a lower maring because the cel was too expensive.

Now, let me tell you that first I find it totaly
ridiculous people that go to Japan, find a few
cheap cels for themselve and then claim that all
dealers are thief because they sell for much
higher prices : Sure, during a trip to Japan,
you may nearly always find a few cels at an
extremely good price. But to live from this,
you need more than 2 or 3 cels per trip. And
trust me, you will never find 500 cels at price
bellow their real value.

Now, concerning the margin, let me ask you one
thing : How much do you think your TV realy cost
to be produced ? How much for your coffee to be
produce ?

The answer is : a very very small part of the
end price. Amazingly enough, it's the same for
cels.... Why ? Here is some reason :

1) Expenses to go to Japan, stay there, bring
   back the cels
2) Customs fee
3) For every cel sold, there is often 1 or several
   cels that will never be sold. Prices have to
   take that into account !!!

And then, it's a job. If dealers were going
there to buy cels for themselve, they would
never sell any ! Like any other shop, they are
doing that to live from it. That mean :

4) Pay a salary to the person that go to Japan,
   handle order, do packets...
5) Pay taxes, insurances and others stuff a shop
   has to pay

After all that, maybe there may stay a little
profit... if you are lucky, if you choosed the
right cels, if you sold enough... not that obvious
or far more people would do it, don't you think ?

Then dealers like myself can't get only the cels
we are nearly sure that will sold. If we want to
offer a large choice of cels, we also have to
take risk and buy expensive cels. Or cels that
are less popular and so on... Take a Miyazaki
cel for example : If I buy one for $700, do
you realy think that I can sell it at several
time it's price ? Far from it! I will perhaps
try to sell it for $900... and without any
guarantee that I will sell it during the next
few months if at all. That's pretty risky.
In general, the most expensive a cel is, the
riskiest it is for the dealer : Because less
people can afford it, because the margin can't
be as high as on cheaper cels, because that's
a lot of money "blocked" on a single cel that
may not sell at all.

Now, taking into account all that, try to
calculate how many cels you need to buy (and
what kind of money that mean) during a single
trip if you want to _live_ from it (which
mean paying your flat, taxes, food, clothes...)
until you can go back to Japan and buy more
cels... Count all expenses. Add the lost from
all the cels that won't sell. Add your salary
to live from this.... See what's the result.

Cheers,
Yann Stettler