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Candy Japan April Income Report

110 points by micrypt 14y ago

tferris 14y ago
'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 14y ago
  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.
  - tferris 14y ago
    What, flowers from Holland?
    - icebraining 14y ago
      No, pastries from Portugal :)
      - tferris 14y ago
        That's a marvelous idea. If they are the same as those I once ate in Barcelona—really tiny, perfect details, like small artworks and excellent shape and colors—you should go for this. Question is: how long is the durability. Probably you have to find expensive delivery services for food with a cold chain distribution. But the idea is good, I never saw such pastries somewhere else again. Are they the same in Portugal? EDIT: I found a link (think it was Bubo): http://www.cocoonbarcelona.com/blog/favourite-pastries-barcelona http://www.cocoonbarcelona.com/blog/favourite-pastries-barce...
        icebraining 14y ago
        They're actually rather different: http://saltofportugal.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/pasteis-de-belc3a9m-14.jpg http://saltofportugal.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/pasteis-de... But yes, it'd be hard to keep them fresh while not inflating the costs too much (I don't expect them to be sold as expensive delicatessen).
        DanBC 14y ago
        I imagine fresh food would have a bunch of weird import restrictions.
  - bemmu 14y ago
    Pastries do sound troublesome. Even with candies I have to avoid sending anything crumbly or containing chocolate or otherwise they will take severe damage during some trips. For example many postal systems are automated and move mail through conveyor belts that can sometimes crush items.
  - vasco 14y ago
    Pastéis de Belém, heh?
    - icebraining 14y ago
      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?transition=ResultsDetailed&ntmark=&application=CTMOnline&bAdvanced=0&language=en&deno=&source=search_basic.jsp&idappli=1254895 http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?tra...
- bemmu 14y ago
  It's true there is marketing benefit from HN. Not just directly, but many bloggers read HN and sometimes feature the service because of that (btw. if you're thinking of doing that, you can reach me@bemmu.com).
  - shiftpgdn 14y ago
    For what it's worth I hadn't heard of you guys until this post and I just signed up. I imagine I'm not the only one.
    - bemmu 14y ago
      Thank you! So far there have been 23 new subscribers today that I would attribute to this HN post.
prawn 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Crazy stuff at stationery sections? What do you mean exactly?
  - prawn 14y ago
    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.
- shiftpgdn 14y ago
  Jetpens.com does this but not as a subscription model.
- bemmu 14y ago
  Hey cool, that's a great idea for another subscription club I could launch off the current code/customerbase.
elktea 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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/ 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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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 http://i.imgur.com/OnVIF.png)
  - ticks 14y ago
    Hate to say it, but I suspect that showing photos will put some customers off because the products don't look substantial enough. I realise that there are overheads and that your service is presumably aimed at people with a high enough disposable income.
sparknlaunch12 14y ago
$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 14y ago
  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/ 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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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 14y ago
        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.
antihero 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
- aw3c2 14y ago
  Another idea: Let your customers comment on the "past candy". Let them rate it and share it and talk about it.
lewispb 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - lewispb 14y ago
    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/ http://josscrowcroft.github.com/money.js/
- mwill 14y ago
  I get a similar 'even to Australia' message, and damn do I appreciate it. As an Australian I find myself avoiding online purchases because shipping costs routinely run more expensive then what I want to buy, unless you want to wait 30+ days for your item. It's a fantastic personal touch that just makes me instinctively like the service and want to show my friends.
- shimon_e 14y ago
  Hope he has an exclusion list for countries the post office don't post to. Whether it is political or temporary due to natural disaster.
rmATinnovafy 14y ago
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
- bemmu 14y ago
  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?
  - woodall 14y ago
hudibras 14y ago
Hmm, first General Motors and now Candy Japan pulls their ads from Facebook. How is Zuckerberg going to stanch the bleeding?
- bemmu 14y ago
  Without my $250 / month they might have to cancel the IPO :)
joering2 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 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).
  - OzzyB 14y ago
    And how are you going to handle SSL encryption for your checkout/cc page? Going to use a separate hosting service for that part? I see that you're running on App Engine, hence the question...
    - bemmu 14y ago
      HTTPS works for appspot domains, so I thought I'd redirect them to bemmu1.appspot.com for the checkout. That wouldn't exactly inspire confidence in the service, but just until App Engine gets around to adding proper support.
robodisco 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
rudiger 14y ago
I feel like your landing page is too "corporate". Candy Japan is about the emotional experience. The design should reflect that!
- bemmu 14y ago
  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?
mendable 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    I agree with mendable, I feel like your service is very convenient, much more so than having friends send you things.
famousactress 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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.
  - jianshen 14y ago
nimrody 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
- bemmu 14y ago
  I think that's exactly why it works, because you get to try something different. Before living in Japan I did some holidays here and it was one of my favorite activities to just buy random things from kiosks and vending machines and to be surprised with new tastes.

110 points by micrypt 14y ago

'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 14y ago
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.
- tferris 14y ago
  What, flowers from Holland?
  - icebraining 14y ago
    No, pastries from Portugal :)
    - tferris 14y ago
      That's a marvelous idea. If they are the same as those I once ate in Barcelona—really tiny, perfect details, like small artworks and excellent shape and colors—you should go for this. Question is: how long is the durability. Probably you have to find expensive delivery services for food with a cold chain distribution. But the idea is good, I never saw such pastries somewhere else again. Are they the same in Portugal? EDIT: I found a link (think it was Bubo): http://www.cocoonbarcelona.com/blog/favourite-pastries-barcelona http://www.cocoonbarcelona.com/blog/favourite-pastries-barce...
      - icebraining 14y ago
        They're actually rather different: http://saltofportugal.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/pasteis-de-belc3a9m-14.jpg http://saltofportugal.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/pasteis-de... But yes, it'd be hard to keep them fresh while not inflating the costs too much (I don't expect them to be sold as expensive delicatessen).
        DanBC 14y ago
        I imagine fresh food would have a bunch of weird import restrictions.
- bemmu 14y ago
  Pastries do sound troublesome. Even with candies I have to avoid sending anything crumbly or containing chocolate or otherwise they will take severe damage during some trips. For example many postal systems are automated and move mail through conveyor belts that can sometimes crush items.
- vasco 14y ago
  Pastéis de Belém, heh?
  - icebraining 14y ago
    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?transition=ResultsDetailed&ntmark=&application=CTMOnline&bAdvanced=0&language=en&deno=&source=search_basic.jsp&idappli=1254895 http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?tra...
bemmu 14y ago
It's true there is marketing benefit from HN. Not just directly, but many bloggers read HN and sometimes feature the service because of that (btw. if you're thinking of doing that, you can reach me@bemmu.com).
- shiftpgdn 14y ago
  For what it's worth I hadn't heard of you guys until this post and I just signed up. I imagine I'm not the only one.
  - bemmu 14y ago
    Thank you! So far there have been 23 new subscribers today that I would attribute to this HN post.

prawn 14y ago

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 14y ago
Crazy stuff at stationery sections? What do you mean exactly?
- prawn 14y ago
  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.
shiftpgdn 14y ago
Jetpens.com does this but not as a subscription model.
bemmu 14y ago
Hey cool, that's a great idea for another subscription club I could launch off the current code/customerbase.

elktea 14y ago

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 14y ago
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/ 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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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 http://i.imgur.com/OnVIF.png)
- ticks 14y ago
  Hate to say it, but I suspect that showing photos will put some customers off because the products don't look substantial enough. I realise that there are overheads and that your service is presumably aimed at people with a high enough disposable income.

sparknlaunch12 14y ago

$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 14y ago
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/ 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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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.

antihero 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
aw3c2 14y ago
Another idea: Let your customers comment on the "past candy". Let them rate it and share it and talk about it.

lewispb 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- lewispb 14y ago
  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/ http://josscrowcroft.github.com/money.js/
mwill 14y ago
I get a similar 'even to Australia' message, and damn do I appreciate it. As an Australian I find myself avoiding online purchases because shipping costs routinely run more expensive then what I want to buy, unless you want to wait 30+ days for your item. It's a fantastic personal touch that just makes me instinctively like the service and want to show my friends.
shimon_e 14y ago
Hope he has an exclusion list for countries the post office don't post to. Whether it is political or temporary due to natural disaster.

rmATinnovafy 14y ago

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

bemmu 14y ago
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?
- woodall 14y ago

hudibras 14y ago

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

bemmu 14y ago
Without my $250 / month they might have to cancel the IPO :)

joering2 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 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).
- OzzyB 14y ago
  And how are you going to handle SSL encryption for your checkout/cc page? Going to use a separate hosting service for that part? I see that you're running on App Engine, hence the question...
  - bemmu 14y ago
    HTTPS works for appspot domains, so I thought I'd redirect them to bemmu1.appspot.com for the checkout. That wouldn't exactly inspire confidence in the service, but just until App Engine gets around to adding proper support.

robodisco 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.

rudiger 14y ago

I feel like your landing page is too "corporate". Candy Japan is about the emotional experience. The design should reflect that!

bemmu 14y ago
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?

mendable 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  I agree with mendable, I feel like your service is very convenient, much more so than having friends send you things.

famousactress 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
- jianshen 14y ago

nimrody 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.
bemmu 14y ago
I think that's exactly why it works, because you get to try something different. Before living in Japan I did some holidays here and it was one of my favorite activities to just buy random things from kiosks and vending machines and to be surprised with new tastes.