What is the method of business strategy of "Candy Japan" that exceeded monthly earnings of 1 million yen

ByVia Tsuji

After the new corporate law was enforced in May 2006, the cost required to start a business due to the abolition of the minimum capital system of the company drastically declined, a start-up offering various services was born It is. "Candy Japan"Is a startup that develops a strange service of shipping Japanese sweets overseas,Sales of $ 36,000 (about 2.76 million yen at the time at that rate) in half a year from foundationGive details,The Hacker NewsIt was open to the public. About 2 years and 6 months later, Tmi Bemmu, the founder of Candy Japan, revealed that the monthly average revenue exceeded 10,000 dollars (about 1,02 million yen) at Hacker News, and how the profit was steadily increased We are publishing.

Candy Japan crosses $ 10000 MRR
http://www.candyjapan.com/candy-japan-crosses-10000-mrr

Candy Japan is a service that gives people around the world twice a month Japanese sweets to their homes, operated at $ 25 a month (about 2,500 yen) and can be used from Japan. The graph below shows the change in the number of users, with the vertical axis representing the number of users and the horizontal axis representing the number of days elapsed since February 13, 2013. The color-coded graph shows blue one for one-shot users using PayPal, red for regular users, users with orange gifts, and users who received free samples for green. The number of users who were around 300 in February 2012 began to grow gradually from about 715th day around the graph in the February 2014, reaching about 700 people.


At the beginning of service, Bemmu thought that some problems would arise in the customs concerning the delivery of sweets, but only one issue concerning the customs that I encountered by June 2014 was. That did not become a big problem, just because the customs official opened the package doubtfully that the white powder attached to the sweets was an illegal substance. In rare cases, there were sweets which are sent back due to uncertainty of address etc. However, by closely contacting customers, they operated without causing major problems.

The free samples in the graph above are bloggers who were interested in Candy JapanYouTuberIt will be what we sent to you. Bemmu, who felt that "providing free samples to bloggers and YouTuber does not lead to an increase in user traffic to your website" sometimes hesitated to offer free samples, Currently it is sometimes sending samples by going in reverse. The reason is that if there are 600 snacks of candy per box, for example, if 50 candies are delivered to 550 users, Bemmu will use the surplus sweets as a free sample for the bloggers It is said that they are offering and have them write reviews.

ByWally Gobetz

Currently, the flow of delivery from purchase taken by Bemmu is as follows. First of all, for purchase of sweets, we propose "which sweets are likely to be liked by foreigners" to the contracted local supermarket, and the supermarket who received the proposal places an order to a wholesaler who delivers the sweets It takes the form of. The wholesaler who received the order delivered the sweets directly to the supermarket, the supermarket which received the merchandise replaces Bemmu and underwrites shipment, Bemmu adds the commission and pays the supermarket. Actually receiving the candy by himself, sorting and shipping increases the burden on himself, so there seems to be no idea to lower the cost until now by changing this mechanism.

However, in the past, he seems to have thought about changing the mechanism. Bemmu is a membership exchange salon for creators of Granfront in Osaka "Knowledge salon"Was a person who had a connection with a confectionery maker, and thanks to the person's mouthpiece, I was able to find a route to purchase items directly from manufacturers. Although purchasing costs are naturally lowered by purchasing sweets without going through supermarkets, Bemmu says that it is difficult as a future supplier because there was only one type of sweets manufactured by the manufacturer It seems that we decided to return to the conventional method.


Bemmu who established the method concerning the purchase and delivery of sweets is currently working on how to maintain regular users. In order to raise customer satisfaction, occasionally I will spend my pocket money sometimes. For example, I sometimes give periodic users gifts of Japanese made chopsticks with initials as bonuses. "It is very difficult to balance customers' pleasure and tracking profits," Bemmu says.

What was most annoying to Bemmu was work on customer support. Bemmu's mailbox seems to have become a bummer with e-mail such as "I changed my address, but it is okay?" "My credit card has expired, but what should I do?", But for customer support only We gradually made improvements, such as creating a manual, locating the reason why the user sent the mail, changing the site design, and now the number of inquiries has decreased considerably than before.

ByEran

Bemmu took advantage of the time spent on customer support, "Pen Japan"We launched a new service called. Pen Japan is a service that ships a stationery of pretty design that is like Japan at $ 14.95 (about 1500 yen) every month. Well, I'm curious if Pen Japan also goes well like Candy Japan.