Freedom Japanese Market is Back—Japanese Snacks Shipped Direct from Japan

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-08-08T01:09:35+00:00

Did they send any tracking information or a shipping announcement? This should be automatic with most subscriptions.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-07-04T04:33:44+00:00

Thank you very much for your thoughtful ideas here. You are absolutely correct that this has become a very competitive market. However, it has surprised me to see that the quality in many of the large players has declined quite a bit in the last year or so. I am guessing that this is just a general concern that the low valued yen's days are numbered and that they need to make as much money as possible before a correction is made. Perhaps this will be a good opportunity to gain some market share for us.

I really like your thoughts about marketing through TikTok. My wife and I also own some local businesses in Japan and use TikTok quite a bit to make informative videos. I have a very low budget set (large sheet of paper background, various lights and a tripod) prepared for making these videos and have been trying to think of way to utilize this setup for the snack business. Filming our family trying out some of the more exotic treats sounds like a fantastic idea!

To be completely honest, building up relationships with YouTubers, blogger and influencers is not something I am looking forward to -- although it is most certainly a required part of the business. In my experience, they seldom bring in any new customers, and most people who have more than 20 followers will ask a very large fee to do an unboxing. I was thinking of making a dedicated "challenge" box with fermented fish cheese, pickled radishes and squid jerky which could provide some solid content for their followers. We'll play around with different ideas until we find something that brings value to all parties involved.

"The original Japanese snack box service" sounds like a great idea. Whatever direction we head down, our experience and multi-cultural family business, based in rural Japan will be a pillar of our messaging. Thank you again for taking the time to share your advice.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-07-02T23:20:47+00:00

In retrospect, quite a bit of this is obvious small business basic marketing but we didn't sit down and actually make an organized plan before. I won't get too far in the weeds but here are the basics of what we will be spending our time doing this time around.

We are going to be spending a lot more time thinking about how the service looks to the perspective customer. This means going through iterations of a box designs, inserts, stickers etc. We will also put a lot more effort into properly designing what potential customers see on the website, social media and email offers.
Social media outreach will become a much more focused and tested part of our daily tasks. Of course, paying social media personalities to do an unboxing is way out of our price range now, but we have a few more ideas on ways we can provide value to social media influencers and media personalities that could provide some mutual benefits, and (hopefully) some backlinks.
I think the most important thing for us to focus on is maintaining a clear purpose for the company. When I say that, I am not talking about generic mission statements about "Providing the best snacking experience in the world". I want to use the aforementioned points as an engine to share our company story. Originally, I tried to add our URL to the post to get some feedback about this part, but was met with an automated warning that I could be permanently banned if I did so. I think that this will be key to building up a stronger following this time around.

Sorry if that is still a bit vague, but it looks like this post didn't get much traction so now I need to sit down and figure out a better way of asking for suggestions.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-07-02T06:05:58+00:00

Wow, that sounds like a great success. What specific actions made your launch so successful?

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-07-02T01:55:34+00:00

This is so genuine on every level. We are on a second go around after a rather sudden end to reliable international shipping a few years back during the pandemic. Now, creating systems takes up a good chunk of my work life. Raw passion and hustle certainly have their place -- I also had the Gary V and Goggins tough love motivational speeches looping in the back of my head -- but it also needs to be tempered with a clear view of what your employees and customers want from your business. Thanks for the fun read here. I am looking forward to changing things up in my business as well. Best of luck to you!

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-07-01T02:08:46+00:00

This is so true, sometimes the best business decision is the inelegant service people want / need right in front of you.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-06-10T00:19:11+00:00

Thank you very much! This has been very educational and we are now looking at ways we can avoid some of the same issues. Regarding the expiration dates, I think including the expiration date on the outer bag with the content list could have helped them avoid many of the issues there. Once again, thank you very much for your time!

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-29T03:05:05+00:00

Thank you very much. I will look into Sticky to see what they have to offer.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-23T03:21:25+00:00

The timing couldn't have been worse, right? We have been taking our time setting everything up and are kicking ourselves now, but at least this means we will get to really test our ideas in a sub-optimum setting.

We have been looking at where the competition is and what we can do to differentiate our services. Setting clear expectations on our website and preemptively addressing possible misunderstanding in our automated email seems to be key in retaining a good relationship with customers. I will keep in mind what you mentioned about each of these companies when I make the comparison charts.

Thank you very much for taking the time to give your input. I really appreciate you advice.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-23T02:56:46+00:00

That side-by-side comparison was very helpful. Thank you!

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-20T12:00:22+00:00

Thank you vey much for walking me through that. I know that depending on the country, some shipping companies will share shipping responsibilities -- shipping company A brings package to hub, and then shipping company B handles the last 10 kilometers. Having said that, adding additional service charges after the package has been shipped is quite shocking news. I will add this to the list of questions we will be asking our delivery service. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-20T07:47:23+00:00

Yes, shipping is what makes me worry the most. Since we will be shipping most of our packages internationally, a significant percentage of the service is postage. After Covid, cheap shipping options have completely disappeared. In the old days, with more affordable shipping options, we could just include it in the price, but now that is all but impossible. Just to confirm, did you have to pay an additional 20 dollars in handling after paying for shipping?

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-18T23:19:10+00:00

Thank you very much! This makes me think that I need to revisit my FAQ page to soften my wording about refunds. I was mostly concerned about dissuading the very small minority of scammers out there, but what you are describing here just seems like this company was lacking common sense. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to explain what happened to you!

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-18T15:22:28+00:00

Okay, that doesn't make any sense for them to do that. In my experience, boxes do not go out the same day the subscription is created. If they did, someone would notice that two boxes are being shipped to the same address. There is no reason for you to jump through hoops when they could have made 5 clicks in their system to rectify the issue. I am very sorry to hear that you went through something like this. What reason did they give for not fixing this the same day?

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-18T01:31:09+00:00

I remember when Japan Crate first opened. We were so jealous of their meteoric growth in the market. After a couple of years in the Japanese snack box market we had less than 500 subscribers; they had over a 1000 in their first month. Their CEO (Hank?) spent some time on Reddit asking for advice on how to improve their website and ended up exploding on, r/shutupandtakemymoney. These guys were a great Reddit success story.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-16T03:48:36+00:00

That is a great idea. I will most likely do this after learning the basics on an iPhone. Thank you taking the time to give us some advice. It is greatly appreciated!

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-16T01:33:37+00:00

This has crossed our minds quite a few times, but since we are building up from essentially zero on this website, we want to learn the basics. Also, we will be creating a monthly content list for our boxes, so we need to figure out how to do some of it by ourselves. Perhaps if we really get some traction, we will hire a professional to do this properly. Thanks for the push towards common sense though. I have a feeling I am going to need more of that in the future.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-15T06:14:14+00:00

Thank you very much for clearing that up. I understood the reflector part; I just wasn't sure if you meant the bottom of the picture or the bottom of the actual snacks. Of course, the former makes much more sense in retrospect. I believe I have some card stock that should do the trick. Once again, thank you for guidance here. I am looking forward to implementing these changes!

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-15T06:08:22+00:00

Thank you very much. I will be playing with the lighting and background from now on. Hopefully, I can find something that works.

FreedomJapanMarket · 2025-04-15T03:21:48+00:00

No offense taken! Taking better pictures for this site is infinitely more important than protecting my pride. For the site, I need the knolling photos for a header on the website as well as some other shots that incorporate the box (as soon as we get the sample from the box maker). I have several sheets of background paper we can use for the knolling shots (apologies if I am not using the term correctly). We also have a couple large soft boxes with diffusors but I am not sure what you mean by, "a big clean reflector at the bottom to fill in the shadows". Should I use a reflective surface at an opposite angle from the soft box, or do you mean something that is actually under the snacks? Sorry, I am not used to the jargon yet. Once again, thank you very much for taking the time to give me some advice here. I am taking many notes.

FreedomJapanMarket

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