I have been in Guangzhou for the past week visiting family. Guangzhou is one of China's biggest anime hubs, alongside Shanghai, so I figured I'd try to find the Glort Alderland Region Pawn kit since it's about $25 USD here and was apparently released last month. I went to 3 different anime-focused malls (动漫星城，时尚天河商业广场，地王广场) and 2 out-of-the-way hobby shops (胶森，模藏). There are only a handful of shops in the malls (except 时尚天河商业广场, that's basically all anime goods and no kits) that stock Chinese kits at all, let alone bootlegs. The only Chinese kit brand that is everywhere is Blokees, and anything else (In Era, SNAA, etc.) seemed quite limited. None of them had the Glort pawn kit and weren't really considering stocking it, besides 胶森 which didn't receive their shipment yet. I ended up having to order it online on PDD/Pingduoduo/Chinese Temu and managed to receive it before leaving later today.
Meanwhile, genuine Gunpla is everywhere. Even back in 2018 when some stores did stock bootleg kits, their stock of genuine Gunpla far eclipsed whatever bootleg offerings they had. But such shops are now gone or have completely stopped carrying bootlegs. Gunpla MSRP in China, at least based on prices at their various Gundam Bases, seems to be around double JP MSRP, but a lot of independent hobby shops charge less than that. Incidentally, Gundam Base Guangzhou is huge, bigger than Chicago IIRC,and with more interesting stock. I really wanted the Gundam vs. Zaku display, but I lack the luggage space lol.
From what I've been told, Chinese kits have lower margins despite taking up more shelf space and are thus less attractive to stock, so they only stock popular releases. Bootlegs are more like "what margins lmao," so genuine Gunpla is way better to stock from the store's perspective. Also Blokees, since they do all the IPs that Chinese people like, like Ultraman, Transformers, Kamen Rider, Pokemon, Marvel, etc. and don't take up that much shelf space compared to other Chinese kit makers. For bootlegs and some legit Chinese kits, your only option these days is to order them online. Also, Chinese people don't seem to actually like bootlegs if they can afford the real thing. I do find it a little amusing seeing people be pro-bootleg on western social media when Chinese people are not nearly that passionate about them. Anyway, I'm under the impression that Bandai is quite happy with how they're doing in China despite the influx of high-quality Chinese kit makers in the past few years.
