Tenso: Get Your Own Japanese Shipping Address (and ship things on the cheap)
21. Apr, 2009
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What Tenso is doing is one of those ideas where you think “dang, I shoulda thought of that.” It’s simple, it’s helpful, and provides a really good service. I tried it out recently, and they let me pick out a Japanese t-shirt and ship it via their service, so that I can give it away to one of you. More information on that at the end of the post.
So here’s the rundown on Tenso: 1) You go to a Japanese website that sells something. 2) You order the item, and have it shipped to your tenso.com address (the address is free). The package is then sent to them, located in Tokyo. 3) They get the package, and then send it to you at a discounted rate.
Now why is this service convenient? Why is it better? First of all, a lot of places won’t ship internationally. If they do, it’s stupidly expensive to do so. Tenso is a shipping company, and all their specialty is shipping outside the country, which means you get a discount. Shipping from a store in Japan to Tenso is very cheap. I know I wish I had known about this service when I was shipping Christmas gifts from Japan. Would have saved a lot of money :(
They also provide a list of shops to give you some good ideas on where to shop. My favorites are Amazon.co.jp and Yahoo Auctions. With these two sites alone, you can pretty much find anything you want. There’s a ton of other specialty shops listed, though, as well as a list of shops that accept Paypal, if that’s how you roll.
Go check it out – there’s a lot of good stuff out there waiting to be bought. There may be hope for all of you who wish you had a ridiculously warm panda hat like mine.
Win a T-shirt
Tenso was indeed kind enough to buy and ship a t-shirt to me so I could give it to you folks. There is a tiny little catch, though.
You have to write a haiku for me. Well, actually, it’s a haiku for Tenso, since they were the ones who paid for the shirt. I also want you to write it on Twitter (feel free to put it in the comments below, too, but it won’t count towards the contest). In your haiku tweet, you must include the hashtags #tenso #haiku at the end of the tweet to make it count. For example:
Tenso, my heart wanes / for your shipability / love me ship me now #tenso #haiku
That way, when I search for it on Twitter, I’ll be able to find it! While you’re at it, follow me on Twitter for brownie points (which won’t help you at all in the contest, but will give you awesomely stylish brown noses!). You have until the end of the week to write this haiku (We’re talking Friday, here!). You can write as many as you want, but of course, you can only win one time :)
The t-shirt is a size Medium, but fits kind of large (I imagine it’ll shrink a bit, though). I’ll ship it to anywhere in the world, even back to Japan if I have to, so everyone please give it a shot! Haikus are 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, and if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask and I’ll help you out.
If you’re looking for some inspiration, or just want to get a hold of a Godzilla head, check out Tenso for all your Japanese shipping hopes and dreams.
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