

Candy Japan 2014 Year in Review - veb
http://www.candyjapan.com/2014-year-in-review

======
jglauche
Some feedback as a user: I canceled my subscription recently after about half
a year. Some things I didn't like with the service:

\- The service said that candy was shipped bi-monthly. I assumed it would come
like every two weeks, but it always arrived quite simultaneous for me, a few
days to a week later once a month.

\- Maybe it's me, but the flavors often ranged from weird to inedible (like
rose flavored candy)

\- There is no way to re-order candy that I actually like. Actually, it's hard
to even gather the name of the candy often enough in order to search for it.

\- The cancel subscription link / process was hard to find on your page.

~~~
bemmu
Thanks for the feedback.

International mail is a bit unpredictable, even post office says the packages
can take 2-4 weeks, so it is possible there could be overlap.

I try to balance between easy to eat and truly bizarre. Sorry you didn't like
those rose flavored ones, but many people actually loved them. Taste
preferences are so varied I can't hope to keep everyone happy. I would rather
sometimes shock and sometimes dazzle instead of just keeping it safe.

Definitely looking into starting a shop in the future to re-order more of the
good ones.

Cancel instructions are in the FAQ, they are complicated a bit because I don't
have user accounts on the site (need to verify you have the subscription you
are trying to cancel). Easiest way is to drop me an email and ask for cancel.

~~~
mchaver
I haven't used your service, so I be making some wrong assumptions here, but
if some users would like to be able to find some of the candies they have
eaten, you could include a list in their account with the name of candies they
have received in Japanese (and English or Romaji) and a photo. Probably should
wait until after they receive the package to maintain the element of surprise.

------
JacobAldridge
Congrats Bemmu - I love the 'overnight success story' that was 2014.

In my experience, businesses tend to grow in jumps with a plateau in between
and it looks like 2014 was that sort of year (as a deserved reward for the
years of platform investment you had made). Best of luck getting over that
1,000 item milestone and then the next big jump beyond!

~~~
bemmu
If I could just keep at 1000, that would be great success. I think if somehow
the site doubled again, it would become possible to even hire full-time help.

Interestingly not all sweets makers are that interested in selling in bulk. My
approach seems to need some tweaking. Currently I would just send an email
like "hey I'd like to buy 1000 of these cute candies you make, how much would
it be?". But instead of a price, I just get "we don't sell wholesale". It's
strange to me as I would imagine they would be happy to sell more of their
product, but apparently a more gentle approach is called for here. My first
hire would likely be someone who is really good at this, unless I can somehow
turn into that person myself during this year.

~~~
caractacus
Are there Costco-like outlets in Japan? Places that sell in bulk at a lower
cost?

Just signed up for a trial. Really looking forward to it. A couple of things:
1\. The sign up process is SO EASY. Fantastic - wish other sites would make it
so simple. Choose your level of service, pay, done. Fast and quick.

2\. Email newsletter signup? Didn't notice one. Would be a great way to keep
people who pay for gift subscriptions in the loop.

3\. Provide a custom email for people who have bought a gift subscription. At
the moment, it's just the link. If you provided a page or sample email that
was like 'Hey, I've bought you a subscription to Candy Japan!!!! Here's what
happens... etc etc' \- I think it would make the impact of the gift greater.

~~~
bemmu
I don't really know how wholesale works, not sure how to learn more about it.

What I called the newsletter is really just a description of the items that we
send to subscribers when stuff is shipped to them.

Good idea about the explanation page for gift subscriptions.

~~~
bane
This is American focused, but I think the story is very similar in Korea, so
it might parallel how it works in Japan as well.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Wholesale](http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Wholesale)

I know in Korea that some of the big "traditional" style markets have shop
fronts that are only wholesalers and won't sell to regular customers. If
there's an analog where you live you might want to hit those up. I wouldn't at
all be surprised if there's a wholesale confectionary market of some sort that
meets once a month or whatever.

My sister-in-law ran a small store for a few years and she'd go to a local
convention center/stadium and buy all kinds of inventory at such places.

------
m-app
Great write-up, Bemmu. Glad to hear Candy Japan is still going strong. I had a
subscription for a couple of months last year, I got my first batch right
after we met on a warm sunny day here in Amsterdam!

Unfortunately I had to cancel the subscription, though. This is because the
frequency was just too high for me. Although I do love all the weird and funny
types of candy, I'm not that much of a sweet tooth and some of the candies
kept piling up! If 2015 also brings different types of subscription, I'll
probably sign up again for once a month.

All the best!

~~~
zacharycohn
Does Bemmu offer an "every other month" subscription for 2/3 the price?

If not... you should. :)

------
mtgentry
I still love this idea Bemmu. One suggestion - I think you should invest in
design and copywriting for the homepage. What you're selling is an emotional
experience but it isn't being presented that way.

To Americans like me, Japan is mysterious and fun. I actually don't WANT to
see what the box looks like. If you play up the mystery more, it becomes less
of a transaction and more of a emotional experience which will help justify
your higher price.

Congrats on the good year!

~~~
bemmu
Thanks for the suggestion. Do you have some example of a site that would in
your mind be closer to how Candy Japan should be?

~~~
mtgentry
Sure, I think there's a couple ways you could go:

Maybe you play off Japanese cartoons, with characters like this:
[http://drbl.in/bTYf](http://drbl.in/bTYf)

Or maybe you could have loud and over the top illustrations of the candy like
this, but 10 times louder [http://drbl.in/kgdq](http://drbl.in/kgdq)

Since your product is candy, I would go for the playful/quirky/over-the-top
aspects of Japanese culture. Lots of fun color and illustrations. As opposed
to the traditional, serious, craft focused parts of the culture.

------
doug1001
feedback from current customer (approx 20 months): i set up a subscription for
my small team of devs--try to convince them i'm a thoughtful, generous
manager, or at least buy their love. They "care packages" are a huge hit with
this gang--every candy type (a team of six with varied tastes so not too
surprising). Initially, when the twice-monthly shipments arrived, i would but
the box on a bookcase in our area; i don't think the candy ever lasted more
than 24 hours. After the first couple of months, they began retrieving them
directly from the mailroom, then putting the box on my desk once it was empty.
I would love to try some, or even one, but you see why that hasn't worked out
so far. About a months or so ago, one of the devs on the team told me how
awesome she thought were these sweets, and kudos to whomever orders them for
the whole team.

------
stats_lly
I have stumbled upon Candy Japan about half a year ago when I was moving house
and said I'd try it after I settle down. I have recently come back to this
topic and did some research on different Japanese snack subscription options.

\- Most services cost around $25 monthly.

\- Candy Japan seems to offer the most frequent service, with almost all of
the other options only offer monthly delivery.

\- But Candy Japan also offers the smallest amount - 282 grams (141 grams * 2)
compared to others who usually offer 1lb (450 grams) monthly.

Has anyone tried other subscription services? How do they compared to Candy
Japan?

~~~
CmonDev
Can you list those other services, please?

~~~
stats_lly
Here's a review on (probably) all boxes available:

[http://beejuboxes.com/box-list/japanese-snack-
boxes/](http://beejuboxes.com/box-list/japanese-snack-boxes/)

After some comparison, looking at sample boxes, weighing pros & cons, I signed
up for a taste box from TasteJapan, and I'm very excited to see what it's
like!

------
Joona
I have noticed a similar graph on Twitch viewership - you hover around 1000
viewers for a year or two, and then suddenly start gaining hundreds of
viewers, and in just a few months, you may have doubled your numbers.

Congrats on your success!

~~~
Kiro
Where did you see those numbers? Is it from personal experience?

~~~
Joona
Yes, just noticed it from regular viewing.

------
jameswyse
I love Candy Japan but do have a couple of suggestions:

\- The email you send out is great, but it often arrives well after I have
received the package. One arrived a couple of days ago and I really want to
wait on the email, but my willpower is usually no match for (possibly)
delicious candy :/

\- The email always goes to spam. Maybe check your DKIM settings or contact
MailChimp? Or maybe it's just me? (Gmail / Google Apps)

\- A small card with the name/photo/short description of each item would be
great. If they were well designed and of decent quality I'd even collect them!

------
davidw
Are there any regulatory hurdles, or are you flying under the radar, so to
speak?

Congratulations in any case - it always cheers me up to see a niche business
like this do well.

~~~
outworlder
He may well be.

One anecdote: one of his shipments had quite a variety of candies. While other
boxes were unopened by customs, this one had stickers all over it. Upon
opening, I noticed that one of the candy boxes had been opened, which happened
to be the one with candies that looked like white round pill-like things. I
assume it was flagged as suspicious and a sample was taken. It had a sticker
with the word 'food' (in Portuguese) written on it.

There are a few regulations regarding 'food' imports. I even expect to run
into some trouble because of the regular deliveries. I suspect the amounts are
small enough that it hasn't hit any triggers yet.

------
chr15
How do you source your candies? Did you ever have any logistics issues with
order fulfillment being time consuming? How did you get around that?

~~~
bemmu
I've built a relationship with a supermarket owner. He gives me a discount and
also does a lot of the work of calling around manufacturers to see which
candies he can get. I suspect he probably makes a nice profit, too, compared
to if I did all that sourcing myself.

The biggest challenge is that many items are region bound or limited time
sales, so practically we cannot get them. If I took the train to various
prefectures in Japan and chatted with manufacturers, I could probably get even
more variety going. I was thinking of starting a new tier (Candy Japan
premium) for that, but still thinking about it.

It does take time to prepare the packages. First of all we don't know exactly
how many subscribers we'll have until the last minute. Then we want to order
an amount of items that best matches that count. That takes more time than if
we pre-ordered. Then stuffing the boxes takes about 3 days. I think the post
also takes an extra day for them to calculate all the postage for a pile of
1000 boxes. So yes there are currently some delays, but from the customer
point of view they get something every 2 weeks, only the initial shipment
being slow to arrive.

~~~
lsiebert
You might consider preordering extra so you can cover your count, and sell
additional boxes/ordering of individual items as one off items. A one off box
of some of the same stuff you shipped out might make a good gift or a way for
a person to get some more of a box they really enjoyed, or a way to try out
the service (perhaps at a slight discount) without subscribing.

------
ekianjo
Hey Bemmu, great story! Come and talk about it in one of the next HN Kansai :)

~~~
bemmu
You all already know about it. I should rather take a trip to Hacker News
meetup Seattle or somewhere :)

------
Pamar
Some more feedback:

I did a "test run" with a subscription for my mother. She enjoyed it as a
gift/novelty idea, but the quantity was too much for her... I am now
considering (prompted by the post of some other customer in the thread) to get
a subscription for my office. But ... one of the shippings to my mother
included some crazy "hamburger facsimiles" that you had to prepare by mixing
different powders, pouring in stamps, cooking in microwave and then cut up and
assemble. While fun, this is impractical for office use, I'd prefer to be sure
I get actual candies mostly (salted snacks would be ok, too, but anything
involving such a preparation would be wasted on us).

Finally: I was really disappointed when you canceled the stationery project...
I had at least three people who could get this as a gift (and possibly renew
on their own after the first run).

~~~
CmonDev
_" but the quantity was too much for her"_

What is the real quantity? All I could find is a photo of two empty envelopes
from a distance and a single nicely done box of candies (what does it have to
do with envelopes?).

~~~
Pamar
Sorry but I am far away from her home and cannot check - I am just reporting
her reaction after 3-4 shipments.

(And this is not criticism about the service: it was me who had misjudged the
situation - anyway she was happy about the idea, it is just that she prefers
not to eat "too much" candies for health reasons).

------
Xixi
I'v very recently (few days ago) launched a service with the same business
model but for Japanese tea, called Tomotcha:
[https://tomotcha.com](https://tomotcha.com)

I'll most certainly do a Show HN soon, just a couple of things to fix before.
For instance the price is currently only listed in EUR, but if you prefer to
be billed in USD just drop us an email saying so and we will bill you in USD
($25/month).

~~~
gwern
Looks interesting. I'm certainly interested in Japanese teas and like being
able to sample a variety ( [http://gwern.net/Tea](http://gwern.net/Tea) \-
might I encourage you to also explore the world of oolongs as well as
greens?), but looking at your current front page, my first thought is 'it
sounds like a good idea, but how do I know the tea they send will be any good?
What have they sent in the past and/or plan to send for launch?' You have a
listing of families, but not the specific ones.

------
lerouxb
Maybe consider a different currency? The USD is really strong at the moment,
causing the price to be really expensive for most countries.

------
vgnanand
@bemmu, Non-subscriber here (Although potential subscriber). Could you start a
mailing list for the website that would feature new stuff or offers that you
may have. It's a wonderful service, but my memory defeats me often 'coz of
which I may miss out on new stuff or simply forget about the service, so,
please consider the option.

------
hobo_mark
Hi Bemmu, I found something similar on PH some time ago (japancrate.com),
although is seems more recent, do you know them? How common are these
'subscription box' services (I had no idea this was a thing)? Do you have more
subscriptions in Europe or the US?

------
videogramme
I think your page need a good way to graphically browse all those candy.

I don't understand the difference between the box from April 2014 and the size
of "two standard Japanese envelopes".

------
cyberjunkie
Sounds like you're going to be getting more new customers today!

------
joonap
おめでとうベッム！Nice to hear that the business is doing well! 明けましておめでとう！

------
bjackman
Idea: Gift subscription should have an option to send the first package to
you, so that you can wrap it up and physically give it. Then they can add
their mailing address.

------
jzwinck
Free idea (worth as much as it costs!): You could franchise in other
countries. Candy Korea, Candy Taiwan, that sort of thing.

Thanks for the good, clear write-up.

~~~
bemmu
Thanks.

I tried launching one site called Pen Japan. But what I realized is that any
time I considered putting in some effort to promote Pen Japan, I was better
off putting that effort into promoting Candy Japan instead. If I look for
bloggers to reach out to or write guest posts, I can't justify doing it for
the new site when I would much rather promote the existing one.

Why would I prefer promoting existing one? Two reasons: running two sites is
almost twice the work. Why launch a new site and promote that, when I could
instead push the existing site? Secondly, there are some minor scale benefits
when shipping a lot of the same item. You can get a better margin when buying
1000 pieces of the same item vs. 500 pieces of two different items. So it
makes sense to push hard on just one direction.

If the sites were somehow less related, but with some synergy benefits, then
that would make sense. For example if I launched a buy-and-ship reshipping
service where customers can request any item they want from Japan which I then
go out to buy and ship to them. It would make sense to promote that, because
the avenues to promote it would be different enough not to compete against
Candy Japan. It would also make sense in that those services could be cross-
sold, so that is something I might consider. But not really wanting to start a
"Candy X" where X is just some other country.

------
samteeeee
You should change your FB share image to the professional photo of the box of
candy, rather than the comic image, IMO.

------
petecooper
I subscribed after reading this review - I love what you've done, Bemmu.

------
Kaboozy
Any coupon code for HN community?

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jchung
What happened in July 2014?

------
colechristensen
I enjoy my Candy Japan subscription, including the occasional joy of not
enjoying a strange foreign food :D

