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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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!<p>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.<p>There are so many neat things you can do that will turn this into a 10K business ASAP.<p>Good luck!<p>PS. Shoot me an email to rm at innovafy dot com
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.<p>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.
I like how you've used my IP address to tell me that delivery will be free 'even to the United Kingdom'.<p>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!<p>Other than that, great idea and I wish you all the best!
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.
$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...<p>How can we see earlier blog posts?.
'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.<p>And these income reports are clever Marketing.
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.<p>Lightweight, should be cheap to ship, etc.
<i>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).</i><p>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?<p>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.
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?
Having tried Japanese candies (and deserts in general) while visiting Japan, I'm very surprised that this actually works.<p>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.<p>French/Belgium products might appeal to western taste better.<p>Other than that - Good luck!
Have you thought to tap out the Japanese Expat market as an advertising/marketing opportunity?<p>That might include Japanese people living abroad, students, workers living in the middle east for 12 months, etc<p>The service could very easily appeal to people living abroad and wanting a reminder of home every month.
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.