
Candy Japan April Income Report - micrypt
http://www.candyjapan.com/april-profit-report
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rmATinnovafy
I've been following your posts since you started with the business. Have to
say that I'm impressed by your tenacity in keeping this fun idea going.

Now, your marketing copy is all over the place. The layout is so hard to
follow. Things are just too spread around, and the eye cannot follow an easy
reading path.

Put everything into two columns, side by side. Put more pictures, and more
information. Get a smaller third column on the right side for the
testimonials.

Also, your headline is not bade, but it has nothing under it for me to read .
The job of a headline is to get people reading the copy. You have no copy.

The big ugly green button is akin to a car salesman handing you a buying
contract for a brand new car before you even shake hands. Get that out of
there!

I believe that if you did a video of you hand picking specialized candy for
your customer then sales would improve. People are not buying the candy, they
are buying the experience. Let them see the process through a camera so they
can relate and live out their Japanese fantasy. In fact, do a 10 minute long
video of you shipping for candy. Put all the different candies and give out
your opinions. Talk to Japanese people, and have them share their favorites.
You could even try and get the best selling candy manufacturer into letting
you do a little tour of their factory.

There are so many neat things you can do that will turn this into a 10K
business ASAP.

Good luck!

PS. Shoot me an email to rm at innovafy dot com

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bemmu
Hi, thanks for the feedback. The current layout is the result of lots of
playing around with the site. Testimonials and the video had a big impact on
conversions, so they are front and center now. I guess I might be biased from
looking at the site a lot, but to me it seems pretty clean.

I think it needs to be clear exactly what step I want the user to take to
join, so that's why that huge big green button is there. It's also not half
bad looking in my opinion, although depends on your browser since it uses some
recent webkit CSS stuff.

Factory tour / other kind of video back scenes content is probably a good
idea. Since the current video works, it may be that that would work even
better. Even before that though, I've been thinking of experimenting with a
video that would just explain the service in simple terms.

You have a lot of ideas, have any for how to bring in traffic?

~~~
hellweaver666
Personally, I really like the design. The only thing I would do would be to
slightly increase the line-height on your copy. It should make it slightly
easier to read (I usually aim for about 1.5em but some prefer slightly less).

~~~
bemmu
Better now?

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antihero
I'd say you could do some serious work on your site. I have no idea what
amazing candy could be sent. Your site is very bland for a site about CANDY. I
really like the idea and I think you would totally increase conversion if you
actually did some selling of what you're giving (GIANT PICTURES OF CANDY LOOK
AT THIS AMAZING CANDY IT COULD BE YOURS TWICE A MONTH). Videos are cool, but I
don't see a single beautiful picture of candy on your site.

Also, based on the demographic of people who will want candy from Japan,
perhaps toy with the 8-bit nyan-cat-anime-retro geek-style vibe? Cute rainbows
and hello kitty and all giant eyes and all that. Perhaps do huge detailed
8-bit renditions OF THE CANDY.

~~~
bemmu
Thanks a lot for the feedback. I agree that might be cool, although would need
to test it against current. If you know someone who could such a mockup for
me, let me know. The current site was just designed by myself, I wanted to do
more cute / sweet style design, but couldn't come up with one that I was
satisfied with. You definitely have a point here.

Update: added some example pics

~~~
CharlieA
It's candy and it's japanese... that just conjures all sorts of images of a
super high tech factory run by cats and magic. I'd love to see a candy
envelope being stylised packing animation in the background or off to the
side. It could look amazing visually and would explain the concept instantly.

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lewispb
I like how you've used my IP address to tell me that delivery will be free
'even to the United Kingdom'.

May I suggest using the same code to also convert the price from $23.95 to the
users local currency as this will help increase conversions. £15.10 feels a
lot less than $23.95!

Other than that, great idea and I wish you all the best!

~~~
bemmu
That's a great idea, I get this gut feeling/fear though that it might
introduce some extra complexity. I might be able to do that at least for
EUR/USD/GBP but I suppose have avoided it until now to keep things simple.
Will have to think that through more.

~~~
lewispb
Sure. I see your PayPal subscription is $23.95 per month - which is fine,
there's no need to change that. I'm just thinking from a UI perspective you
could try using money.js (1) to show to the user the current price in their
local currency:

Mystery sweets from Japan for £15.10 ($23.95 USD) / month

(1) <http://josscrowcroft.github.com/money.js/>

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elktea
I was surprised not be greeted with high quality photos of examples of past
candy. To see any of your product I need to find the 'past candy' link then
decide on which unfamiliar product to click on.

~~~
bemmu
Yes, also intuitively to me it would make sense to have such photos, but I
found the same thing as Manpacks did (<http://mixergy.com/manpacks-ken-
johnson-interview/>) that showing product photos on the main page lowers
conversions. It seems people are in it for the surprise factor.

~~~
patio11
P.S. This is not untrue for software in many cases. Some products get a big
boost out of screenshots. Many don't, and instead get big boosts by e.g.
showing pictures of users or the team which wrote the software. (Whether a
screenshot helps is surprisingly uncorrelated with my subjective impression of
which products are "pretty", even given that I have less artistic sense than a
mole rat.)

~~~
bemmu
Any tips btw. for content I should have on the site for SEO purposes? Even
though I rank for the generic term "japanese candy" and also some specific
candies, I haven't been able to convert people except those searching for the
site specifically (<http://i.imgur.com/OnVIF.png>)

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sparknlaunch12
$2k per month profit (before tax) is not bad. There are some costs that cannot
be avoided per order but imagine as volume grows, so will efficiencies. This
model looks like the mens shaver business. Can see this working for any niche
- shavers, stationary, fruit, nuts...

How can we see earlier blog posts?.

~~~
bemmu
I started this to learn and to provide some basic source of income in addition
to software, so it has worked well for that purpose. It has involved writing
more software than I expected, though!

Earlier posts are at <http://www.bemmu.com/> with currently no easy way to see
only the Candy Japan related things. I was still feeling a bit undecided where
to put them, wondering if it's a good idea to expose customers to income-
related posts.

~~~
sparknlaunch12
Absolutely awesome blog. Pretty sweet ( excuse the pun) execution of an idea
into a profitable business.

Do you think you automate the packing and shipping?

~~~
bemmu
It's already outsourced, which I'm very happy about since it was very time-
consuming when we did it ourselves. I've gradually grown a nice relationship
with the nearby supermarket, it's almost a drop-ship operation at this point,
although I do still meet with them face-to-face every week as our process
isn't totally perfected yet.

If you mean automated as in having robots do it, that would be fun, but moving
oddly shaped objects from sealed bulk packages into narrow envelopes isn't a
very easy task to automate that far.

~~~
sparknlaunch12
Interesting. Packaging and shopping seems to be your biggest pain point and
cost. Reduce these and you have an easier business to manage and can focus on
getting more customers.

Good luck. I imagine there are other goodies from Japan you can offer.

No robots, but rather outsourcing.

Edit: just read your recent post on face book adverts. Really clever. Would
you share more details on conversion numbers.

~~~
bemmu
Long story short, I am not planning to expand my FB advertising efforts at
this point. In my best ever campaign I managed to get 6 conversions after
spending $280 which is getting close to breaking even, but not quite there
yet. Just to reach this almost-breaking-even point I've spent probably close
to $2000 on various ad networks.

Another one that came close to working was bidding on SMBC comics ads through
Project Wonderful.

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tferris
'What a great subscription based business' is always my very first thought
when I read news from Candy Japan. And every time I try to come up with a
similar idea matching my region but I don't find any.

And these income reports are clever Marketing.

~~~
icebraining
_And every time I try to come up with a similar idea matching my region but I
don't find any._

I did the same, but my idea didn't really work. Too bulky and sensitive to the
shipping delays.

~~~
vasco
Pastéis de Belém, heh?

~~~
icebraining
That was my first idea, but it's actually a trademark[1] owned by "Antiga
Confeitaria de Belém Lda", and I didn't want to get involved in ugly legalese.

[1]:
[http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?tra...](http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?transition=ResultsDetailed&ntmark=&application=CTMOnline&bAdvanced=0&language=en&deno=&source=search_basic.jsp&idappli=1254895)

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prawn
Anyone tried the same idea but with Asian stationery? There's always been a
huge array of crazy stuff when I've browsed stationery sections of department
stores in Thailand, China, etc. I'd try it myself, but I think there'd need to
be someone on the ground with direct, cheap access sourcing the product.

Lightweight, should be cheap to ship, etc.

~~~
tferris
Crazy stuff at stationery sections? What do you mean exactly?

~~~
prawn
Asian stationery is often pretty peculiar. Bizarre and cutesy characters,
Engrish slogans, colour combos and so on. I think someone could put together
packs of pens, pads, erasers, etc and have a crack. Wish I were over there to
try it.

Would partner with someone who was there on the ground and handle design and
so on if anyone was interested.

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joering2
_First thing is PayPal fees, after which we are left with $6895. We are
switching from PayPal to accepting credit cards directly through WireCard +
Recurly, but that will likely just raise our costs a bit (but will hopefully
improve conversions)._

This interests me the most. Could you shad some light as of why you switching
knowing the cost will go up. You say it will improve conversions, but #1 isnt
PayPal still the most well known payment system over the web, and #2 dont they
offer payment via regular credit cards?

What you trying to do here, is replace better option with narrower one for all
customers. If anything, you should add Google Checkout, as I got used to using
it over PayPal (and sometimes wont convert) because PayPal got me real mad
couple times in the past.

~~~
bemmu
Instead of redirecting users to PayPal and requiring them to have PayPal
accounts with credit cards linked to them, I can directly ask for their credit
card information. This is how it should look after the Recurly integration is
complete: <http://imgur.com/SHC0a>

I am now paying PayPal $339 / month.

Recurly charges 1.25% + $0.10 / transaction + $69 / month. WireCard charges
2.75% + $0.19 / transaction + $24 / month. My total cost from these would then
be about $473 / month. If I can get ~20 new customers because of this more
convenient payment method, then it was worthwhile.

I'm also expecting some increased life happiness from having to deal less with
PayPal (the interface is sloooow).

~~~
andrewpi
I think some customers (like myself) would be more hesitant to use a non-
PayPal option on your site. With PayPal, I can easily cancel at any time. I
would be worried that by directly providing you with my credit card number, it
would be harder to cancel.

~~~
bemmu
I might have direct credit card input as the big default button and a smaller
PayPal link for those that prefer that. I will have to continue supporting
PayPal indefinitely in any case since I have all subscribers there now.

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famousactress
I love it, but I'm really curious about taxes/export-import-
duties/regulations, FDA, etc. I guess I always assumed there'd be some strict
rules that would make starting this kind of business kind of hairy. Not so?

~~~
bemmu
I'm far from expert yet on this, but as I understand it depends on whether you
are the one bringing the product into the country or not.

For example if I were to go to an anime expo in the US to sell candy there,
then I would need to clear the customs and comply with FDA regulations such as
the list of ingredients that have to appear in the packages.

But when I am situated here in Japan and people order things from me from all
over the world, then they are the ones who are clearing the customs. However
when the shipments are really small, customs is not a problem for the person
receiving them and many countries have limits where you never need to deal
with customs if the order size is small enough.

~~~
famousactress
That's interesting, but I would think it would have limits. Would you be able
to send small amounts of a drug that was legal in your country to a country
where it's illegal? I suppose you'd only be subject to the laws of your
country in that case, the buyer would be subject to the laws in theirs?

Of course, we're talking about Candy.. I'm just intrigued by the idea of
shipping-worldwide subscription businesses in general.

~~~
bemmu
Yeah, I suppose if you mail-ordered illegal drugs from abroad it would be you
who gets into trouble, not the person sending them if they were perfectly
legal in their home country unless the country in question had specific rules
forbidding sending such items.

I am at least a bit encouraged by jlist.com et al. doing direct-sending
including food items from Japan for years apparently with no significant
problems.

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nimrody
Having tried Japanese candies (and deserts in general) while visiting Japan,
I'm very surprised that this actually works.

When it comes to sweets and deserts Japanese taste is so different from what's
popular in the west. It might be interesting but I'm not sure I'd want to pay
for a continuous supply.

French/Belgium products might appeal to western taste better.

Other than that - Good luck!

~~~
WiseWeasel
Because it is different than what is typically available, there is a market
for those who have developed those tastes which isn't being served in a lot of
places.

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mendable
Have you thought to tap out the Japanese Expat market as an
advertising/marketing opportunity?

That might include Japanese people living abroad, students, workers living in
the middle east for 12 months, etc

The service could very easily appeal to people living abroad and wanting a
reminder of home every month.

~~~
bemmu
I might try it, but wouldn't they have friends who send them items? It's very
common even inside Japan that relatives send food items to each other, and I
the Japanese expats who I knew in Finland were also getting items sent to them
by their parents.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
I agree with mendable, I feel like your service is very convenient, much more
so than having friends send you things.

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robodisco
Perhaps it isn't an issue at this scale but for exporting food products aren't
there any regulations / paperwork to fill in? I'm sure I remember hearing the
US were getting stricter re: this. Perhaps this is where your missing
deliveries are going.

~~~
bemmu
I should be OK as I am not the importer of the candies, rather the people
receiving them are. Still, I try hard to be on the safe side so I've contacted
FDA twice to ask if there's something they'd like me to do, once via physical
mail and once by email and got ignored both times.

If I started doing the importing on US side myself in bulk amounts, that would
be a different story and would involve at least filing FDA prior notices.

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rudiger
I feel like your landing page is too "corporate".

Candy Japan is about the emotional experience. The design should reflect that!

~~~
bemmu
I agree it's not that "sweet". I wonder what would be a good example of the
kind of site design I should be aiming for?

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hudibras
Hmm, first General Motors and now Candy Japan pulls their ads from Facebook.
How is Zuckerberg going to stanch the bleeding?

~~~
bemmu
Without my $250 / month they might have to cancel the IPO :)

