Perhaps of some relevance - we routinely order boxes of Japanese candy/munchies off eBay for our kids and their friends. They also make for excellent birthday presents.
40 USD gets you a shoebox of stuff with the same day dispatch and 2 day air delivery to EU. It's a lot of items and we have leftovers for weeks. It also tends to take the novelty edge off for a while, so boxes this big can't be a monthly thing.
For this to work as a monthly subscription, the package size needs to be much smaller, which is what CandyJapan seems to be offering, but then they want 29 USD per month and that's just way too much.
From where I'm sitting, their problem is that it's expensive and it is a subscription. This limits their their target audience to true Japanese candy conneseurs willing to pay twice the market rate for... what exactly?
That's not even getting into the existence of local Japanese (and Chinese!) shops that carry similar inventory, and where 20-30 USD will easily cover a month worth of supply of weird stuff.
I don't think the target audience is true Japanese candy connoisseurs; if anything, it's the opposite.
Many people are interested in trying out Japanese candy, the issue arises in knowing where to order from and what to order. Getting a subscription service to CandyJapan offloads the choosing to a credible service.
In addition to that, there's also the appeal of the surprise. Of course, this is of no benefit to you - you're simply buying this for other people. For people ordering this for themselves, however, it's kind of like being gifted something every month, an always welcome surprise.
40 USD gets you a shoebox of stuff with the same day dispatch and 2 day air delivery to EU. It's a lot of items and we have leftovers for weeks. It also tends to take the novelty edge off for a while, so boxes this big can't be a monthly thing.
For this to work as a monthly subscription, the package size needs to be much smaller, which is what CandyJapan seems to be offering, but then they want 29 USD per month and that's just way too much.
From where I'm sitting, their problem is that it's expensive and it is a subscription. This limits their their target audience to true Japanese candy conneseurs willing to pay twice the market rate for... what exactly?
That's not even getting into the existence of local Japanese (and Chinese!) shops that carry similar inventory, and where 20-30 USD will easily cover a month worth of supply of weird stuff.