The software behind our card shop
By Dorian Takahashi · November 2, 2026
We run a multimillion-dollar trading card business on software we built ourselves: one inventory record across our stores, Shopify, and eBay; graded-card intake with human-approved pricing; a bilingual buying system for Japan; and tools for running card shows.
Most card shops run on whatever software they can buy. We build our own. Here’s what runs the business today, in plain English.
One inventory record for everything
Every card has one record that covers our stores, our Shopify site, and eBay. When a card sells on eBay, it disappears from the website and from store stock. Every change to inventory goes through a single controlled path, so the counts stay right across every channel.
Graded card intake
Staff scan a PSA or CGC slab. The system looks up the certificate, pulls price suggestions from several market sources, and then a person approves the price before anything is listed. Raw singles, sealed product, sports, and comics each have their own intake lane.
The software does the lookup work. A human makes the call.
A buying system built for Japan
Our Japan app runs in Japanese and English. It handles buying cards from the public under Japan’s secondhand-dealer law, including the seller records and the transaction ledger the law requires. It also matches English and Japanese card names across a catalog of more than 60,000 Pokémon products.
That matters because a big share of our Pokémon sales in Hawaii is Japanese product and singles, and our Osaka store opens this month.
Grading as a service
Customers submit cards for PSA grading through our portal and track their submissions online. Status updates automatically, and when fees are due, customers pay by scanning at our register.
Labels from the cloud
Any of our apps can print barcode labels to the printers in any of our stores, or at a show, without setting up each computer.
Software for running conventions
We host Hawaii Pop Con and the Aloha Card Show. Vendors apply, book and pay for tables, and sign agreements online. A waitlist offers freed-up tables automatically, and we design the floor plan in the same system.
Rewards
Customers earn points and move up tiers by shopping and showing up to events, all tied to their regular store account.
Want this for your shop?
If you’re figuring out what to build, buy, or fix for your own shop, that’s what I help with.
- What software does Aloha Card Shop use?
- Mostly our own. We run Shopify for checkout and online sales, and built custom software on top of it for inventory, graded-card intake, pricing, buying in Japan, grading submissions, label printing, conventions, and rewards.
- How do you keep inventory in sync between a card shop and eBay?
- Every card has one inventory record that covers our stores, our Shopify site, and eBay. When a card sells on eBay, it comes off the website and out of store stock automatically, and every stock change goes through one controlled path.
- Do you price cards automatically?
- No. The system pulls price suggestions from several market sources, but a person approves every price before a card is listed.
- What do you need to buy cards from the public in Japan?
- Japan's secondhand-dealer law requires seller identification records and a transaction ledger. Our Japan app handles those, in Japanese and English.