I'm glad to see this, as so often Year In Review posts are by companies humblebragging about how well they're doing, and they stop posting Year In Review when it's been a down year. It's refreshing to see a post that isn't "we're Crushing It", but is honest and real. (Though I hope next year will be more positive though!)
Also, I don't know if this has any SEO impact, but I thought the sitewide "flags" link in the footer of Candy Japan looked suspicious. At first I wondered if the site had been hacked or if you'd started selling backlinks, before I realized it's a requirement of the Creative Commons Attribution licence for the flag images. Maybe experiment with removing that from the sitewide, and just putting that link on a Credits / About Us page?
I'd love to read more about hiring the photographer & your artist. The artwork in the blog posts is amazing!
I am following Candy Japan for years and I like the idea. In its early years the landing page was super charming despite its bootstrapped style. Now in 2017, it just looks aged. I mean the entire presentation, the dull white packaging without any branding and the still unexciting pictures feel like somebody lost all motivation and ambition. No offense, just my perception.
I just googled competitors and all of them feel way more vibrant + being more active on social media (I checked Instagram for the first two):
Building a slick landing page which is also responsive can be quite some work but looking at that competition it's a must, sorry. Look, it's not that people really need a monthly candy box, it's not a rational decision, it's something emotional—an impulse buy. So, if the landing page isn't even thrilling what should then trigger the buy?
Social media in particular Instagram might be a significant marketing channel because Japanese candy and its colourfulness is tailor-made for Instagram.
Maybe the business model is also the problem. There are little lock-ins/network effects and a low-barrier market entry for Japanese entities, thus all these competitors. There might be opportunities to pivot the business or extend into new fields/models. The first thing which comes to mind is licensing successful products for exclusive import/distribution to key western markets. Different game but highly scalable. Maybe there more unseen opportunities. If not then selling the business could be an option (after a final revamp re presentation and SEO).
However, Candy Japan has still one major strength: Frequently placing stories on social news sites like HN and Reddit which always hit top 10 positions and generate tons of free traffic (should be 20-30k visits per placement which would translate in 200 to 300 subs at 1% conversion).
I'm a current Candy Japan subscriber and have been for a long time. Looking over some of those they simply seem like a better deal. An average Candy Japan box has 4-5 items in it and you get two per month. That comes to $29/mo for 8-10 items. JapanCrate advertises 15 items at $30/mo. Tokyotreat is 17 items at $31.50/mo. Wowbox is 10-14 for $25/mo or 12-16 for $34.99/mo. Kawaii Box is 8-10 for $20/mo. SushiCandy is 20 items @ $15.99/mo.
To my eyes at least, CandyJapan seems to be the worst option of all of them. I'm afraid that they're simply being out-competed and without some rethinking of their model they will continue to lose subscribers over time. After looking at those competitors just now I will certainly be rethinking my subscription.
An in depth comparison is in order (though you made a decent stub, and other responses are also valuable).
I went to Japancrate, and I can order once but also subscribe for say a year and save $30 in total (one month). That's not a whole lot saving. I get moved when I get 2 months free when I sub for a year (~16,67%). Also, Japancrate do seem to send to world-wide, but only accept credit card (Candyjapan's statistics show about half of the customers pay via PayPal). I feel like Candyjapan is winning out on these PayPal customers but you wouldn't know that for sure until you'd cancel the option or did an A/B test. Regardless, things like payment options, different packages, and discounts matter. Kawaiibox also provides PayPal as payment option.
PS: What happened with Candy Japan and not sending to Germany?
The box subscription business model is getting harder and harder as competition increases. I can relate on two points with my own Japanese tea-of-the-month subscription (https://tomotcha.com):
- At one point customs were very slow to clear in Germany (one to two months), though shipments never actually bounced back. Paying for tea and not getting it is frustrating. Then eventually it arrives, two months late. We lost customers because of it. Eventually that problem went away and now shipments are going through as usual.
- Competition: we used not to have too much competition when we launched 3 years ago, now similar services are aplenty. It hurts conversion rates, a lot...
It sounds really worth it if I earned USD. Unfortunately I live in a place with a weaker currency and a strong immigrant population. I'll definitely subscribe once I try the teas they have around :)
It's hard to keep subscribers happy every month, especially with food.
Most profitable subscription boxes are profitable because they are run by savvy internet marketers & capitalize on novelty, trends, & gifting, not because the products deliver incredible value to the customer.
I think Proactiv is the only subscription box service that's stood the test of time without having to drastically change their business model and they have historically been extremely savvy with their marketing.
If you look at the landscape of subscription boxes, it suggests that for longterm growth & profit:
1. Curation doesn't work.
2. You have to make / manufacture / private label your own stuff (Dollar Shave Club & Proactiv)
3. You should raise money, use that money to sell your first million boxes at a loss, grow rapidly and try to race towards an exit.
4. If your product doesn't solve a major problem (acne sucks, razors are too expensive etc), you are probably doomed over long term (10-20 year horizon), so it's best to sell in year 3-5.
I recently moved to Finland, and briefly considered setting up an online shop to export Salmiakki to the UK, as lots of people there seem to love it and beg me to bring it when I returned.
I'm amused you're from Finland, but instead are importing Japanese candy! (In the end I decided I couldn't be bothered with the hassle. I just make sure every time I do return to the UK I pack my suitcase with 10-40 boxes of candy.)
What are the odds - we have a tiny bottle on our shelf that some visiting Finlanders gave use about five years ago!
Is... is Slamiakki still safe to drink after five years? There's a lot of weird looking condensation on the bottom. If we gently shake the bottle, it looks like something from X-Files is reaching out to drink us.
It's likely to be a tricky one as there's a ton of competition on Amazon that sells not just Finnish salty licorice but from the rest of the Nordic countries and the Netherlands as well. They're overall expensive, but the selection is fairly wide.
You mention the decline in search ranking and Google traffic.
I'd strongly suggest you set up on Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.
I would do an occasional YouTube video, talking about and showing people the various types of Japanese candy. Maybe do just one per week, focused on a group of related candy. I read your post about YouTube traffic and correlation to sales, I think the solution to that is what it tends to be with everything marketing: consistently drive it over a long period of time (obviously along with clickable links to your site, which the blogged-about video lacked).
I'd post nice, alluring photos to Pinterest and Instagram. Making sure to update both accounts at least weekly. Every item from every box should eventually get an Instagram post, with a description. Japanese candy packaging always seems to my US eyes to be very colorful, energetic, with fun designs - which I think lends very well to a site like Instagram (and its scale is obviously immense).
A Facebook page would also be ideal if you can or want to invest the time to cultivate it (a lot more work vs posting occasional media content to the other sites).
Google isn't dying per se as a highly valuable source of traffic, but things have changed a lot in the last five or six years. Google search as a traffic source no longer occupies the overwhelming position that it used to, and that is going to continue to weaken vs everything else collectively.
Idea: allow people to order add-ons to their monthly packages (something relatively cheap like manga, magazines, etc.). You can order it automatically from Amazon Japan with free domestic shipping. So people could get their candy + whatever stuff they need from Japan, while saving on shipping costs.
I've run something similar to this. It has many problems, especially in the international shipping arena.
Suppose I sell a box of candy that I make a comfortable profit on. You want me to receive, store, and repackage a book that I don't make any money on to the order. I'm just adding something to your existing order and doing you a favor, right?
So I send you a box of candy and a book. The shipment gets lost in the mail / held indefinitely in customs / destroyed / stolen. You don't subrogate Amazon over the missing book (they did their job; I received it), you subrogate me for both the book AND the candy. I take on a lot of additional responsibility and work for no payoff (and often losing money in the process).
Not to mention the changing shipping costs, bizarre object handling and the look on your face when I tell you that car-sized stuffed panda or pallet of Calorie Mate you bought and shipped to my warehouse added $200 in shipping charges to your $20 candy order. The reality of the situation hits you and now you don't want either. Then I lose a candy sale, and have the pleasure of storing and handling your giant Amazon order/return.
The alternative is adding a hefty handling fee to the cost of add-on items, but then using me as a middleman likely ends up costing more than just buying it directly. Then the social media accusations of price gouging on shipping start making the rounds. "My god, how could they charge $200 to ship a stuffed panda!" It's bad for business.
This model only really works when you have a friend over there who can send you stuff. When something gets lost, it sucks, but it's your problem, not your friend's. The dynamic changes when your friend is a business-- everything becomes their problem. It's not worth the trouble.
There are dedicated repackaging services out there whose logistics operate at much better scale than a company whose primary focus is retail.
That's an insane amount of work for a feature that would essentially be "at cost". Complicates shipping logistics, brings new problems (what if customers change its mind after Amazon is already ordered), different boxes and shipping cost for everyone, etc.
Seconding this. I don't know what effect it will have on shipping costs and general logistics and if it's worth it profit wise for the people running it, but I would love this option.
> Another major hit was that all the packages we were sending to Germany started bouncing back. After this continued for several shipments, I decided just not to ship to Germany any more.
I guess that explains why I only ever received one package from my gift code.
Is that still a thing? Because when I open the website from Germany it says:
I've sent refunds for the missed packages to Germany. If you haven't gotten a refund, please contact [email protected]. This Germany thing happened very recently, I'll update the site to reflect it.
Update: Just changed it, should update when the CDN cache expires. Incidentally noticed I also had "East Germany" in my country list, oops :D
> What went wrong? This year I didn't have as much to blog about. In 2016 I had five popular posts (1 2 3 4 5), while in 2017 I only managed two (1 2). The posts tend to send a lot of high-quality traffic, so the impact was bigger than you might expect. I haven't figured out how to invent posts from thin air when I simply have nothing new to share.
benmu if you're reading, what about doing shorter but more regular posts on life in Japan from your family's or just your perspective?
(That being said, I'm much worse than you on blog posts; something I will correct starting now.)
> Tried paid YouTube ads, and while I did get some subscribers, in the end they were just too expensive to keep running. Tweaking the ads was very time consuming and expensive (but fun).
Instead of paying for Youtube ads, why not just do your own candy videos instead?
I was actually thinking about canceling the service (trying to save a little more money + eat healthier) but I really love articles like this so I'll stay on for at least a few more months :)
I would say for me, the personal story is a big selling point. You're just a guy who moved to Japan and started this service as opposed to some faceless conglomerate. The new landing page is much nicer but maybe add some of the stuff in the "Who runs Candy Japan?" page to the landing?
> Another major hit was that all the packages we were sending to Germany started bouncing back. After this continued for several shipments, I decided just not to ship to Germany any more.
Have you ever figured out what was up with that? That sounds like something is going wrong with the Zoll. Normally, sending products to all EU countries should work the same.
Hi, I just checked your site and I noticed you are improving the UI of the web site as I suggested you on Twitter a while ago: now there are images on the pages “check your email for link” and “thank you” page after a subscription. Nice!
Furthermore, about the photos you added on the home page, having good photos of the products you are selling (like examples of older boxes) is a huge improvement. IMHO you did the right thing having them shot professionally. Most of your competitors already had photos of candies, and I finally subscribed to your service mostly because I finally could see in advance examples of what (and how many of them) I will get in the mail.
So, keep going and best of luck! Bye
P.S.: thank you for the discount code in the article :)
Nice story! Thank you for sharing. A few thoughts:
1) when is the last time you sat down with new and existing customers to see their reaction to getting their physical boxes? You might get a lot of good insights of how exciting (or not) the existing experience is of receiving the candy. How does that change between the 1st and 10th box a customer receives?
2) why are people churning? Do you have a prioritized list of reasons? Not what they said (most users don’t actually want to offend you or your business) but what their real reasons were for canceling?
3) keep in mind that the real product is the box with candies. The website is just for sales. Yes, SEO is definitely important to get new subscribers, but to improve your product you have to improve the box or the offerings around it.
4) pricing. I noticed that the lowest offering of $29/month is rather expensive for a novelty purchase. How much experimentation have you done around testing lower price points with less frequent shipments? This could help with acquisition and retention.
I’ll be happy to help you understand how to look at retention, basic AARR analysis, interview customers, etc. just let me know.
Bemmu, you mentioned you tried YT ads. Have you tried to build an audience on YT? For example with unwrapping / “reviews” of some of the candies.
I know there are tons of people watching similar things (though my 1st hand exp is just seeing how my kid wants to spend infinite amount of time watching surprise eggs unwrapping).
Just a hunch, but that might have a bigger ROI than ads.
I was discouraged from doing this after having someone make such a video that generated millions of views, but no sales at all (https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/sales-results-f...). (Just noticed that video has since been removed for "violating community guidelines", I wonder what's up with that)
But I'm still a bit motivated to make more videos, because at 10k subscribers you get to visit the Roppongi YouTube space :-) Here's the old channel we haven't really updated in a long time: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAWrpxBNP8LukXGd4xQIDxg
Every time the year update comes around I have the same I
question (first time posted):
Why not have a cosplayer (preferably a lady) (dressed in costume) review the candy and post that to YouTube? I mean, this can be done for cheap ($75-100 per video or so).
I traveled all over asia with very little issues with using my Chase credit card, but when I went to purchase candyjapan for a Xmas gift, my purchase was insta-denied by Chase.
it was almost like the banks have flagged your merchant account as fraudulent.
You mention you haven't expanded. Have you considered also doing Japanese stationery / office supplies? All the best tools I've got came from my one trip to Japan :)
I tried that actually, releasing Pen Japan at one point and had a few subscribers as well. Then I realized I can't really appreciate nice stationery myself. I would need to hire someone to curate it. The quality of the service was poor, so I decided not to go on with it.
Interesting article, and good to know you're still operating despite the problems.
> All those new subscribers beyond the first 800 were actually fakes who had subscribed with stolen credit card numbers [...] a lot of shipping addresses turned out to be fake as well
I don't know if this was already discussed in previous years, but this sounds like a rival (either established or wanting to copy your model).
I doubt about rivalry, his business doesn't make that much money, even after years of development and quite successful social media posts (I've heard about it a dozen times).
He needs to expand into other niches. Japan is full of weird things.
Maybe I have a too rosy world view, but I don't think rivals would be this mean. Probably some simpler answer. Maybe there's some forum post somewhere like "how I got free candy by using this list of credit card numbers" and people keep trying that.
[+] [-] SyneRyder|8 years ago|reply
Also, I don't know if this has any SEO impact, but I thought the sitewide "flags" link in the footer of Candy Japan looked suspicious. At first I wondered if the site had been hacked or if you'd started selling backlinks, before I realized it's a requirement of the Creative Commons Attribution licence for the flag images. Maybe experiment with removing that from the sitewide, and just putting that link on a Credits / About Us page?
I'd love to read more about hiring the photographer & your artist. The artwork in the blog posts is amazing!
[+] [-] bemmu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waytogo|8 years ago|reply
I just googled competitors and all of them feel way more vibrant + being more active on social media (I checked Instagram for the first two):
https://www.japancrate.com/
https://tokyotreat.com/
https://wowbox.jp/
http://www.kawaiibox.com/
https://www.sushicandy.net/
Building a slick landing page which is also responsive can be quite some work but looking at that competition it's a must, sorry. Look, it's not that people really need a monthly candy box, it's not a rational decision, it's something emotional—an impulse buy. So, if the landing page isn't even thrilling what should then trigger the buy?
Social media in particular Instagram might be a significant marketing channel because Japanese candy and its colourfulness is tailor-made for Instagram.
Maybe the business model is also the problem. There are little lock-ins/network effects and a low-barrier market entry for Japanese entities, thus all these competitors. There might be opportunities to pivot the business or extend into new fields/models. The first thing which comes to mind is licensing successful products for exclusive import/distribution to key western markets. Different game but highly scalable. Maybe there more unseen opportunities. If not then selling the business could be an option (after a final revamp re presentation and SEO).
However, Candy Japan has still one major strength: Frequently placing stories on social news sites like HN and Reddit which always hit top 10 positions and generate tons of free traffic (should be 20-30k visits per placement which would translate in 200 to 300 subs at 1% conversion).
[+] [-] discreditable|8 years ago|reply
To my eyes at least, CandyJapan seems to be the worst option of all of them. I'm afraid that they're simply being out-competed and without some rethinking of their model they will continue to lose subscribers over time. After looking at those competitors just now I will certainly be rethinking my subscription.
[+] [-] lenley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x445442|8 years ago|reply
The links you provided "feel" like they're all created from some stilted framework and not hand crafted like the subject's site.
I mean I like that Neocities quality for websites so I know I'm in the minority.
[+] [-] Fnoord|8 years ago|reply
I went to Japancrate, and I can order once but also subscribe for say a year and save $30 in total (one month). That's not a whole lot saving. I get moved when I get 2 months free when I sub for a year (~16,67%). Also, Japancrate do seem to send to world-wide, but only accept credit card (Candyjapan's statistics show about half of the customers pay via PayPal). I feel like Candyjapan is winning out on these PayPal customers but you wouldn't know that for sure until you'd cancel the option or did an A/B test. Regardless, things like payment options, different packages, and discounts matter. Kawaiibox also provides PayPal as payment option.
PS: What happened with Candy Japan and not sending to Germany?
[+] [-] codinghorror|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaequery|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xixi|8 years ago|reply
- At one point customs were very slow to clear in Germany (one to two months), though shipments never actually bounced back. Paying for tea and not getting it is frustrating. Then eventually it arrives, two months late. We lost customers because of it. Eventually that problem went away and now shipments are going through as usual.
- Competition: we used not to have too much competition when we launched 3 years ago, now similar services are aplenty. It hurts conversion rates, a lot...
[+] [-] Toast_25|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bold_panda|8 years ago|reply
Subscription boxes are hard. I sold mine.
It's hard to keep subscribers happy every month, especially with food.
Most profitable subscription boxes are profitable because they are run by savvy internet marketers & capitalize on novelty, trends, & gifting, not because the products deliver incredible value to the customer.
I think Proactiv is the only subscription box service that's stood the test of time without having to drastically change their business model and they have historically been extremely savvy with their marketing.
If you look at the landscape of subscription boxes, it suggests that for longterm growth & profit:
1. Curation doesn't work.
2. You have to make / manufacture / private label your own stuff (Dollar Shave Club & Proactiv)
3. You should raise money, use that money to sell your first million boxes at a loss, grow rapidly and try to race towards an exit.
4. If your product doesn't solve a major problem (acne sucks, razors are too expensive etc), you are probably doomed over long term (10-20 year horizon), so it's best to sell in year 3-5.
[+] [-] stevekemp|8 years ago|reply
I'm amused you're from Finland, but instead are importing Japanese candy! (In the end I decided I couldn't be bothered with the hassle. I just make sure every time I do return to the UK I pack my suitcase with 10-40 boxes of candy.)
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|8 years ago|reply
Is... is Slamiakki still safe to drink after five years? There's a lot of weird looking condensation on the bottom. If we gently shake the bottle, it looks like something from X-Files is reaching out to drink us.
[+] [-] vidarh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pimeys|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
I'd strongly suggest you set up on Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.
I would do an occasional YouTube video, talking about and showing people the various types of Japanese candy. Maybe do just one per week, focused on a group of related candy. I read your post about YouTube traffic and correlation to sales, I think the solution to that is what it tends to be with everything marketing: consistently drive it over a long period of time (obviously along with clickable links to your site, which the blogged-about video lacked).
I'd post nice, alluring photos to Pinterest and Instagram. Making sure to update both accounts at least weekly. Every item from every box should eventually get an Instagram post, with a description. Japanese candy packaging always seems to my US eyes to be very colorful, energetic, with fun designs - which I think lends very well to a site like Instagram (and its scale is obviously immense).
A Facebook page would also be ideal if you can or want to invest the time to cultivate it (a lot more work vs posting occasional media content to the other sites).
Google isn't dying per se as a highly valuable source of traffic, but things have changed a lot in the last five or six years. Google search as a traffic source no longer occupies the overwhelming position that it used to, and that is going to continue to weaken vs everything else collectively.
[+] [-] Grue3|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstarfish|8 years ago|reply
Suppose I sell a box of candy that I make a comfortable profit on. You want me to receive, store, and repackage a book that I don't make any money on to the order. I'm just adding something to your existing order and doing you a favor, right?
So I send you a box of candy and a book. The shipment gets lost in the mail / held indefinitely in customs / destroyed / stolen. You don't subrogate Amazon over the missing book (they did their job; I received it), you subrogate me for both the book AND the candy. I take on a lot of additional responsibility and work for no payoff (and often losing money in the process).
Not to mention the changing shipping costs, bizarre object handling and the look on your face when I tell you that car-sized stuffed panda or pallet of Calorie Mate you bought and shipped to my warehouse added $200 in shipping charges to your $20 candy order. The reality of the situation hits you and now you don't want either. Then I lose a candy sale, and have the pleasure of storing and handling your giant Amazon order/return.
The alternative is adding a hefty handling fee to the cost of add-on items, but then using me as a middleman likely ends up costing more than just buying it directly. Then the social media accusations of price gouging on shipping start making the rounds. "My god, how could they charge $200 to ship a stuffed panda!" It's bad for business.
This model only really works when you have a friend over there who can send you stuff. When something gets lost, it sucks, but it's your problem, not your friend's. The dynamic changes when your friend is a business-- everything becomes their problem. It's not worth the trouble.
There are dedicated repackaging services out there whose logistics operate at much better scale than a company whose primary focus is retail.
[+] [-] jeromegv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vadansky|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeeZ|8 years ago|reply
I guess that explains why I only ever received one package from my gift code.
Is that still a thing? Because when I open the website from Germany it says:
> $29 monthly with free shipping even to Germany.
[+] [-] bemmu|8 years ago|reply
Update: Just changed it, should update when the CDN cache expires. Incidentally noticed I also had "East Germany" in my country list, oops :D
[+] [-] rwmj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bemmu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SmellyGeekBoy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaostheory|8 years ago|reply
benmu if you're reading, what about doing shorter but more regular posts on life in Japan from your family's or just your perspective?
(That being said, I'm much worse than you on blog posts; something I will correct starting now.)
> Tried paid YouTube ads, and while I did get some subscribers, in the end they were just too expensive to keep running. Tweaking the ads was very time consuming and expensive (but fun).
Instead of paying for Youtube ads, why not just do your own candy videos instead?
[+] [-] RulingWalnut|8 years ago|reply
I would say for me, the personal story is a big selling point. You're just a guy who moved to Japan and started this service as opposed to some faceless conglomerate. The new landing page is much nicer but maybe add some of the stuff in the "Who runs Candy Japan?" page to the landing?
[+] [-] kuschku|8 years ago|reply
Have you ever figured out what was up with that? That sounds like something is going wrong with the Zoll. Normally, sending products to all EU countries should work the same.
[+] [-] manuelmagic|8 years ago|reply
Furthermore, about the photos you added on the home page, having good photos of the products you are selling (like examples of older boxes) is a huge improvement. IMHO you did the right thing having them shot professionally. Most of your competitors already had photos of candies, and I finally subscribed to your service mostly because I finally could see in advance examples of what (and how many of them) I will get in the mail.
So, keep going and best of luck! Bye
P.S.: thank you for the discount code in the article :)
[+] [-] marek12886|8 years ago|reply
1) when is the last time you sat down with new and existing customers to see their reaction to getting their physical boxes? You might get a lot of good insights of how exciting (or not) the existing experience is of receiving the candy. How does that change between the 1st and 10th box a customer receives?
2) why are people churning? Do you have a prioritized list of reasons? Not what they said (most users don’t actually want to offend you or your business) but what their real reasons were for canceling?
3) keep in mind that the real product is the box with candies. The website is just for sales. Yes, SEO is definitely important to get new subscribers, but to improve your product you have to improve the box or the offerings around it.
4) pricing. I noticed that the lowest offering of $29/month is rather expensive for a novelty purchase. How much experimentation have you done around testing lower price points with less frequent shipments? This could help with acquisition and retention.
I’ll be happy to help you understand how to look at retention, basic AARR analysis, interview customers, etc. just let me know.
[+] [-] senko|8 years ago|reply
I know there are tons of people watching similar things (though my 1st hand exp is just seeing how my kid wants to spend infinite amount of time watching surprise eggs unwrapping).
Just a hunch, but that might have a bigger ROI than ads.
Thanks for the writeup, love the openness!
[+] [-] bemmu|8 years ago|reply
But I'm still a bit motivated to make more videos, because at 10k subscribers you get to visit the Roppongi YouTube space :-) Here's the old channel we haven't really updated in a long time: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAWrpxBNP8LukXGd4xQIDxg
[+] [-] rootlocus|8 years ago|reply
If kids are the main demographic, I doubt they generate a lot of ROI.
[+] [-] pryelluw|8 years ago|reply
Why not have a cosplayer (preferably a lady) (dressed in costume) review the candy and post that to YouTube? I mean, this can be done for cheap ($75-100 per video or so).
[+] [-] Pfhreak|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itake|8 years ago|reply
it was almost like the banks have flagged your merchant account as fraudulent.
[+] [-] evanb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bemmu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpt1138|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianleeclark|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codinghorror|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LV-426|8 years ago|reply
> All those new subscribers beyond the first 800 were actually fakes who had subscribed with stolen credit card numbers [...] a lot of shipping addresses turned out to be fake as well
I don't know if this was already discussed in previous years, but this sounds like a rival (either established or wanting to copy your model).
Edit: https
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|8 years ago|reply
He needs to expand into other niches. Japan is full of weird things.
[+] [-] the-dude|8 years ago|reply
Hence charities are popular to test on too.
[+] [-] bemmu|8 years ago|reply
Maybe I have a too rosy world view, but I don't think rivals would be this mean. Probably some simpler answer. Maybe there's some forum post somewhere like "how I got free candy by using this list of credit card numbers" and people keep trying that.