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Comment by danshapiro | Hacker News Reader

As you grow the service, you'll have the opportunity to dramatically reduce costs. You can buy candy in bulk, have it shipped by the wholesalers directly to the US, and so on - there's no reason your costs shouldn't be just a few dollars (for shipping) more than domestic candy prices, in sufficient quantities. After all, most domestic candy is made overseas anyway. :)

In the interim, can I suggest the following for your customers grouped in a single country (I'm using the example of the USA since that's what I know best):

- Find a friend in the states

- Set the boxes up so they're ready to ship from your friend's city to the subscribers' destination (you can do this with USPS online printable mailers in the states)

- Ship them all in one big box to your friend

- Have your friend open the big box and dump the contents directly in the outgoing mail

I think this would save dramatically on postage.

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In the case of the US, you can improve this further:

Find a friend who lives near a Mitsuwa, JAS Mart, or similar Japanese grocery (there are several here in NYC).

Have him buy the candy there in bulk (enough to fill all the US-bound orders anyway), and use the relatively cheap USPS flat-rate shipping to send it to US subscribers.

i.e., avoid buying in Japan (which is more expensive b/c of VAT) and avoid shipping from Japan; the chain groceries have done the hard work for you, so you can reap the benefits.

But then the product he's delivering isn't special, and if he did that I would never subscribe.

Well, the candy sold at Japanese groceries in the US is no different from what's available in Japan (it's all imported from there, after all).

His service would only make sense for you if you're not within driving distance of such a store yourself.

There are a lot of seasonal candies that are not available out of Japan. I don't live in the US anymore but when I did I never saw any of the more original candies in the Japanese groceries... For example, at one time, they had wine kitkats in Japan.

You can find the low-hanging of the Japanese pop snacks (Pocky, Yan-yan, Koala's March) at any Asian market in a top 100 major US city; but you won't find, for example, limited edition Soda flavored Kit Kats or Meiji Wintertime Fuwafuwa chocolate or anything crazy cool like that.

That's where a service like this would shine, I reckon.

Are there candies sold only in Japan that I can't find here?

Last time I visited Tokyo I couldn't really see a difference (then again, I'm not exactly a candy coinesseur).

There are lots of seasonal and limited edition candies in Japan that I think is difficult to find elsewhere.

Dunno, I haven't been in a candy shop in the US in a long time. Do you have choco-mochi?

Yes, but don't use the non-functional US postal service. UPS or FedEx work fine. There's a reason why knowledgeable shippers (such as Amazon) use the USPS only for rural parts of the US, and use private couriers exclusively for the coasts and large cities.

I guess if you do this you'll have problems with tariffs and import/export regulations.

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