Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

bemmu.posterous.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 131 posts

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#111

Post by white_devil »

mdiep wrote: post #92
fadys wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I launched http://teapeat.com a little over a month ago. I like to call it TAAS: Tea as a Service. I've had a decent amount of signups since then, but it has leveled off. I hope to share what I've learned so far very soon.

As a tea neophyte, I strongly suggest that you add a link to recommended equipment for brewing loose-leaf tea. I have considered trying to get into tea several times, but could never figure out exactly what I should buy if I want to brew loose leaf tea. (I'm sure I could find something, but I only like buying things off of recommendations.) This could do 2 things for you: 1) You could earn some money off of an affili…

I'm still a bit of a newbie myself, but one thing to consider is how much tea you want to brew in one go.

If you're drinking high quality, delicious tea, I don't think you'll want to settle for only one cup at a time. But the more you brew, the more leaves you need to use.

It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but let's say you use one teaspoon of leaves for one cup of tea, you can't just steep the same amount of leaves longer to get one liter of tea. But you can brew whatever amount at a time, several times. I think the "10 - 15" times on teapeat.com is exaggerated. It's probably closer to 5, and even then, the taste kind of changes along the way.

I brew something like 7.5 deciliters ( http://theoatmeal.com/pl/senior_year/science ) of tea at a time, and that gives me roughly three nice-sized cups. But I need to use roughly four teaspoons of leaves for that.

If you want to get serious about enjoying high quality tea (and who wouldn't!), you might want to invest in a water-boiler that lets you set the temperature. Almost no quality tea can be brewed at 100C.

For Japanese sencha (my favourite type of tea), it appears that roughly 70C is good, which just so happens to be the temperature I get from my water boiler when I ask for 80C. A lucky coincidence.

Another choice you need to make is the kind of teapot you'll use. A glass pot looks pretty with your lovely green tea in it, but will break into pieces when it slips from your hands when you're washing it. True story. A stainless steel pot won't break, and will keep your tea warm for a long time. Then there are other kinds, like cast-iron pots, ceramic ones, etc. I've got a steel pot now, and I'm quite happy with it.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#112

Post by dzhiurgis »

This gave me an idea of shipping dark rye - eastern european kind of bread. They do have rye bread in UK, but it is completely different from the real thing. I wasn't able to find any "lithuanian bread" online, maybe the nature of the product is difficult to ship. I think most breads shelf life is like 3 days, with some extremes of 10 days..

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#113

Post by fauldsh »

bemmu wrote: post #109
koichi wrote: post #101

To get more subscribers, I think you ought to be: - Writing about Japanese candy. - Making videos about Japanese candy. - etc. Doing this will attract people interested in Japanese candy, and will pull in potential and real subscribers. Over the long term I think this could be good. I also think the topic of "Japanese Candy" is big enough for you to write/video about it once or twice a week. As for the service itself…

This was interesting, thank you. I'm not sure how to only send the good ones, and that would depend on the recipient's tastes as well. Part of the idea is to try new things, so it seems unavoidable that as I go through all the varieties out there, people will not like some of them. Some people don't like gummy candy, some really do. Some people are really into "construction kit" type candy, some hate the effort invol…

Construction kits with some pre-made sets is probably a good way to go. I would be interested to see if advertising on western manga or anime sites would provide better value for money.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#114

Post by koichi »

bemmu wrote: post #109
koichi wrote: post #101

To get more subscribers, I think you ought to be: - Writing about Japanese candy. - Making videos about Japanese candy. - etc. Doing this will attract people interested in Japanese candy, and will pull in potential and real subscribers. Over the long term I think this could be good. I also think the topic of "Japanese Candy" is big enough for you to write/video about it once or twice a week. As for the service itself…

This was interesting, thank you. I'm not sure how to only send the good ones, and that would depend on the recipient's tastes as well. Part of the idea is to try new things, so it seems unavoidable that as I go through all the varieties out there, people will not like some of them. Some people don't like gummy candy, some really do. Some people are really into "construction kit" type candy, some hate the effort invol…

I agree, taste is super hard to figure out -

Maybe if you ran some kind of candy A/B Test.

Send two different kinds of envelopes to people, and keep track of who got what. Then, send a survey to these people to have them rate the candy's they received. After a few months, you should start to have a general idea on what types of candies are liked more and what types are liked less. Even though you'll never have a taste-consensus, you can get a general idea, and modify what kinds of candy you send and the amounts of the kinds of candies you do send.

Or, another way would be to send all the same candy to everyone and send out a survey. Then the next two weeks send another set of candy and run another survey.

Whatever you do / don't do, getting stats and info is really nice.

You can't, unfortunately, please everyone :( so might as well please a group of people _a lot_ and get a group of really evangelical fans, I think.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#115

Post by whichdan »

Have you considered offering a second "chocolate"-focused subscription? Things like green tea pocky, sweet potato kit kats, or even those little pocky-style mushrooms. After reading your post I signed up for the $13 sample, but $24/mo is a little high for me when I'm not a huge fan of the sort of candy you're mailing out. It would also hit on koichi's issue where some people are more concerned about quality than novelty.

For what it's worth, I'd pay $15/mo for one package or $30/mo for two packages - personally, the difference between $24 and $30 is negligible, given how much I'd already be paying. I currently pay ~$50/mo to have Steaz and/or other iced teas delivered (cheaper than going to Dunkin' Donuts once a day), so the issue isn't really price, rather it's the relative value compared to, say, $24/mo of drinks.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#116

Post by whichdan »

bemmu wrote: post #32
huxley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you thought about adding a candy "rewards" program? If someone starts a subscription from a referral maybe they and the referrer can each get a bonus candy package when they start? That would probably be much cheaper than trying to do advertising with only a marginal increase in packaging complexity.

Yes, that's been on my mind, especially since I keep having candy left over because there is a difference between the bulk amounts I buy (which have to be divisible by 60 generally) and the amount of subscribers I have. I have to be careful though, since it does actually cost a bit to send a package. Another thing I considered was starting some page similar to http://duckduckgo.com/spread.html and reward the most hel…

Not sure how much space the leftover candy takes up, but twice a year (maybe once in the summer and once before the winter holidays) you could sell $24 boxes of random leftovers from the year. Would be great for new subscribers. You could even give the option of doing a random box + first month of a subscription for $36.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#117

Post by bemmu »

koichi wrote: post #114
bemmu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was interesting, thank you. I'm not sure how to only send the good ones, and that would depend on the recipient's tastes as well. Part of the idea is to try new things, so it seems unavoidable that as I go through all the varieties out there, people will not like some of them. Some people don't like gummy candy, some really do. Some people are really into "construction kit" type candy, some hate the effort invol…

I agree, taste is super hard to figure out - Maybe if you ran some kind of candy A/B Test. Send two different kinds of envelopes to people, and keep track of who got what. Then, send a survey to these people to have them rate the candy's they received. After a few months, you should start to have a general idea on what types of candies are liked more and what types are liked less. Even though you'll never have a tast…

Right, the only trouble is that if I want to create a community, I have to send the same thing to everyone, otherwise there can be no common discussion about it.

If I totally abandon the community aspect though, then I could start designing the ultimate sequence of candy that maximizes retention. Not sure which is better.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#118

Post by bemmu »

whichdan wrote: post #115

Have you considered offering a second "chocolate"-focused subscription? Things like green tea pocky, sweet potato kit kats, or even those little pocky-style mushrooms. After reading your post I signed up for the $13 sample, but $24/mo is a little high for me when I'm not a huge fan of the sort of candy you're mailing out. It would also hit on koichi's issue where some people are more concerned about quality than nove…

I tried sending chocolate before. It was an embarrassing disaster, the goods got delivered damaged. If I try that again I have to up my packaging first.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#119

Post by bemmu »

whichdan wrote: post #116
bemmu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's been on my mind, especially since I keep having candy left over because there is a difference between the bulk amounts I buy (which have to be divisible by 60 generally) and the amount of subscribers I have. I have to be careful though, since it does actually cost a bit to send a package. Another thing I considered was starting some page similar to http://duckduckgo.com/spread.html and reward the most hel…

Not sure how much space the leftover candy takes up, but twice a year (maybe once in the summer and once before the winter holidays) you could sell $24 boxes of random leftovers from the year. Would be great for new subscribers. You could even give the option of doing a random box + first month of a subscription for $36.

Thanks, in response to HN suggestions I added the option to get a sample envelope, for which I can use the extra items. I think I already sold a few dozen, now just need to write another script that finds those orders on PayPal. Their site is painfully slow to navigate by hand.

Re: Shipping $36000 worth of Japanese candy

#120

Post by bemmu »

svalley wrote: post #106

This guy is going to eventually run afoul of the US Customs and the FDA. http://bit.ly/w2XSMA "Food that is sent to an individual in the U.S. for personal use (i.e. not for resale) by a business is subject to special requirements of the Food and Drug Administration. Businesses that send goods to the U.S. must file prior notice. Prior notice may be filed on-line if the goods are being sent through the postal service."

I'd love to work with FDA to make sure I follow all the rules, but so far they have ignored my emails. Perhaps I will try to reach them by phone some night.
Post reply on HN