About us
Kobeejapan is the one of the largest online stores that specializes in Sylvanian Families. We started our first online store on ebay in 2016, and since then many customers were greatly satisfied by the great selection of products and customer service. In 2020, we have decided to transition to Shopify!
To have a great selection at the best prices for our customers of Sylvanian collectors, we are committed to the following points.
1. Our strategy
Sufficient market research
Our store concept is “Museum Store”. More than 1000 different products including rare items are always available in our inventory which is one of our greatest strengths. In order to continuously showcase a great selection, we monitor daily and look for rare products of Sylvanian Families in Japanese markets.
Our own purchasing website
We buy the rare and vintage items from Japanese collectors directly through our own purchasing website, and as a result, we are able to cut about 50% purchase cost compared to the regular prices on the market. This is how we collect over a half of our products, and this is the secret to keeping our prices as low as possible.
The cost reduction of advertisement
Typically, online stores allocate about 15-20% of the revenue to the advertising cost; however, our stores reduce the cost as much as possible. For example, most ebay sellers spend an advertised fee to be shown their stores on top in search results; on the other hand, Kobeejapan doesn’t. Instead of spending for advertisement, we spend for improving customer service, and ideally it helps improve customer satisfaction and spreads through good word of mouth accordingly.
2. Our history
Until 2015, I worked at a large IT company and was engaged in IT project management and human resource. In 2016, I left the company and started my own business on ebay.
Originally, I always had thoughts of spreading Japanese culture and planned to sell kimonos or vintage items. However, before I started selling these items, one day I Listed my wife’s Whiskered Cat on ebay which sold right away. Since then, the volume of items has gradually increased, and we became the specialized store of Sylvanian Families. Fortunately, our customers enjoyed our collection of items and services, and we became the seller which sold 50 -60% of Sylvanian Families products among all Japanese sellers in the ebay market in 2016.
Now, we have more than 1000 products available online, and to make our customers happy, we will continue to do our best to improve our services with the employees who share the passion for Sylvanian Families.
3. Our city
Our office is located in the harbor town called Kobe, Japan that is next to Osaka. Many of you may have heard of the name because of Kobe Beef. Since opening Japan to the outside world in 1869, Kobe has been the gateway from other countries. As a result, Kobe has the highest number of bakery shops relative to the population in Japan, and many western style pastries are also famous in Kobe. Kobe is surrounded by a harbor and mountains, so from my trip experiences, I would say it is similar to Vancouver, Canada which is also very beautiful.