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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.




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).


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


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


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.




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