Just Hungry

It’s always bothered me how few merchants are willing to ship their goods worldwide. If the customer is willing to pay for the shipping and customs costs, why should they be denied? Unfortunately, the vast majority of Japan and U.S. based companies hold to this “not outside our borders” policy.

These Japanese-food-goods oriented companies do, however, ship worldwide. Good for them! Often you’ll find that their prices are not that different from what you might pay for similar goods shipped within the country you reside. And for people who live in parts of the world without a lot of Japanese-oriented businesses, they are saviors.

Mailorder sources

Sites that I’ve tried myself are marked with a (maki).

General stores

These mailorder stores carry a wide variety of products, edible and otherwise.

• J-List: Food is limited to snacks and so on. Also carries lots of bento supplies, dinnerware, utensils, cookbooks. Carries a lot of NSFW products (mainly manga, anime of a hentai bent) but has age check. (To go directly to the SFW section without the hentai DVDs and such, go to JBox.com - same company, PG rated.) Prompt service, website is a bit cumbersome, but a big selection of things to browse through. (Note that Just Hungry is a J-List affiliate; by clicking on the link to make your purchases you help to support the site at no cost to you.) (maki)
• Japan Centre: food only within Europe, but equipment and books worldwide. Very prompt service, easy to use website. (maki)
• Japonmania is a site in French and English. They list several bento boxes and such.
• Katagiri: Their web site states they ship worldwide, though I suspect that policy applies to the non-edible housewares. They do ship food all over the U.S.

Bento suppliers

J-List has a big selection of plastic bento boxes and bento supplies. (see above). Japancentre has a growing selection also.

Many eBay merchants also ship worldwide; usually limited to non-food things like bento boxes, knives, kitchenwares and so on. Check the latest bento items listed on eBay page on Just Bento.

(Note that bentoyum.com has stopped selling bento supplies.)

Also see Zensuke below - they carry a couple of bento boxes, onigiri molds, and so on. They have juubako and bento boxes for using on the tabletop.

Specialists

• Evergreen Seeds: Japanese and other Asian vegetable and herb seeds. My favorite source for Japanese seeds, other than my mom! (maki)
• Hibiki-an: A tea farm near Kyoto.
• Korin: Knives, tableware, kitchen ware. Also has a showroom/store in NYC.
• Zensuke: Kitchenware, tableware, gifts from Japan. A nice selection.
• O-cha.com: A green tea seller. I like their matcha-green tea mix iced tea bags. (maki)

Overseas shipping services

These companies act as your ‘friend who lives in Japan’, for a fee of course. You have things shipped to them from merchants who don’t ship overseas, which they will then send it to you. The commission is usually around 10%, but it pays to compare their service fee structures (some require a flat service fee on top of the percentage.)

• DankeDanke (English and Japanese site) Comments: “I have used dankedanke a couple of times, with no problems. Shipping was very fast.” -(anon.)
• i-TM4u (English only site), but their blog (English) makes me think they are Japanese.

Comments: “I use i-tm4u for anything I want to buy from Japan, especially when the company does not ship OS. I’ve bought a few Bento boxes as well as other non Bento items through them and they have always been well packaged and arrive quickly. Their commission is low and shipping is very reasonable.” -(Becki)

“Today i received my work-of-art lunchbox and can say that i-TM4U […] is a very good and reliable shopping agent. It is very difficult to communicate with Japanese companies in English so i was glad to rely on their help with payment, shipping etc. i-TM4U was very accurate with all the info, the box was very well packed as i asked and the pricing is reasonable, too.” -(Anna from Russia)

• Japan to Door (English only site) - offers similar services.
• Rinkya. Comments: “I’ve used Rinkya a few times, and they’re pretty reliable.” -(anon)
• A site to keep an eye on is Sekaimon. Right now they offer overseas shipping services to people living in Japan who want to buy from eBay and such, but they are supposed to offer the same service the other way soon, so perhaps we’ll be able to buy things from Yahoo! Japan auctions, Rakuten and the like through this service.

If you know of other places, let us know in the comments!