Akihabara in Tokyo also used to be a bargain for electronics but I'm not sure that's really true any longer that I've noticed.
It's hard to really properly track these things but over the three trips I've made to Japan over about 12 years. Id say the price rises have been entirely in line with currency and retrogaming inflation.
I.e. I'm not sure it was every as good value as people thought.
I did buy quite a bit over a decade ago but again those were Japan only carts (that wouldn't even run in PAL without a mod chip but would run NTSC-U).
That said it is so much more touristy now I'm sure any arbitrage opertunity would be sweeped away same evening.
Japan is now also making domestic only console versions (at least for switch 2 and I think with PS5 on the cards).
Again this might lead to people thinking consoles are cheap in Japan but these are Japanese only consoles designed to revive the economic doldrum they are in.
The last time I did it, I bought fabric for $60 USD at Joann's, flew to HK, and gave a guy the fabric for a suit. The suit cost $45 USD to make.
Before the Great Recession, Europeans, particularly Brits, were flying into NYC with empty suitcases. It helps that NYC has a sales tax exemption for clothes items under a certain amount specifically to facilitate this.
He then flew back to Thailand and send the suits.
They are small race-only 2-stroke motorcycles, not sold in the US at all.
On the other hand, I frequently buy things from online shops located in many of the EU countries, because very often for various kinds of things that I want to buy I find the best deals in different countries. There are no extra expenses but shipping, so it is frequent to order things from far away, because at a local shop near me they would be more expensive than buying from another country, even with the added shipping.
The NL dealer wanted €5k but Lithuania wanted €2800 for the same exact couch so I then convinced myself it was worth it to pay for a fabric upgrade. Since its made by the same Belgian company, the warranty is identical and valid across the EU.
I guess you could say I’ve successfully assimilated to my new adopted home in NL and now I hate to pay full price for almost anything!
While they’ve started to inflate some items to meet currency conversion rates, some items are still cheaper for me to purchase in Canada directly and bring back to the US.
For instance, even at small scale: one BILLY bookcase, article number 205.220.46, is $90 CAD (~$65.70 US) at IKEA CA and $79 USD at IKEA US.
YMMV coming back across the border but in my experience I just got waived through the border every time I told them I was “just coming back with some cheap crap from IKEA”.
I have in fact brought a rolled up full size mattress home in the back seat of a Fusion Hybrid (it fit! with room for other things!) and it was a great cost savings. As a bonus at the time there was an additional sale in IKEA CA on the mattress that US didn't have, so I saved even more.
Doing the math, 300 miles round trip, 30 miles per gallon, $4/gallon for gas, if I'm buying something that costs more than $400 I get a free trip to other state.
Downside is that you're only breaking even for the time, but if you're making a $1,000+ purchase then it's definitely worth the time for me to make the trip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax
It's likely poorly enforced, but it's on the books and it's a complicated one to track. It was more of a concern when internet sales didn't collect state sales.
There's also Simplified Sellers Use Tax lawsuit that was recently in the courts.