[Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post for ZenPlus. Everything in this review is my own opinion.]
Getting Japanese Products Outside Japan
Whether it’s anime, food, beauty products, or something more traditional, the love for Japanese culture has grown around the world. However, it can be hard to get products from inside Japan to the outside world.
Traveling to Japan yourself is expensive and trying to take items back home on a plane or ship them back can be difficult. Inversely, trying to shop online can you lead you to hundreds of different sites; many of which are all in Japanese.
Fortunately, there is a massive collection of Japanese goods from tons of different retailers all found on just one website called ZenPlus.
What is ZenPlus?
What exactly is ZenPlus, and how does it work? ZenPlus is essentially like a real-world marketplace with thousands of shops all in one location, and it’s all online. They are located in Japan along with all of the retailers they work with, which means you can get real authentic Japanese products without having to go shopping in Japan yourself.
It also means that you don’t have to worry about going from store to store or website to website to get everything you want. One of the biggest benefits is bundling your shipping from all of the different stores, which I’ll explain about more below in my review.
What is an Online Marketplace?
ZenPlus as a marketplace means you can shop thousands of different stores all at once. They connect you to stores around Japan through their site. The easiest thing to compare them to would be something like Amazon.
However, ZenPlus only sells Japanese products from Japanese stores and only to overseas customers. This means they are purposefully catering to foreigners and aren’t just a poorly translated Japanese website. This also means that you can’t buy from them in Japan as they only ship overseas.
Since they are a marketplace but NOT a shopping proxy service or a self-operated online shop, they are NOT able to:
– Ship any product other than those shown available on their website. (VS shopping proxy)
– Ship the product right away from Japan before those products are sent by the store and reached their warehouse. (VS a self-operate online shop)
Their product prices are based on the Japanese Yen and calculated by the exchange rate on the day.
Types of Shops and Items
As you can imagine, with there being hundreds of shops on ZenPlus, there are a lot of different items you can purchase. Examples of these categories include: Clothing, Shoes, Jewelry, Cosmetics, Health & Wellness, Figurines, Car/Motorcycle Accessories, Food, Alcohol, Home Décor, Furniture, and a lot more.
It’s hard to overstate the variety of things you can find on ZenPlus; no matter whether you are into cosplay, beauty products, or sake, you can find something of interest on their marketplace.
Benefits of shopping on ZenPlus
According to ZenPlus, here are 5 of the biggest benefits of shopping with them.
- Their service differs from shopping proxy services in that they collaborate directly with Japanese stores, ensuring that all products are completely authentic.
- They offer the convenience of consolidating products from multiple stores into a single parcel at no extra cost to the user.
- During checkout, users can make a one-time payment that covers the product cost and shipping fee, eliminating the need for further steps.
- They have an English-native customer support team and they are available to assist with communication obstacles that may arise when dealing with Japanese stores.
- Finally, they accept payments in any currency and ship to any country, making cross-border shopping a hassle-free experience for their users.
Shopping Guide
ZenPlus includes a handy shopping guide in case you need any assistance on how to shop on their site. Overall, it’s a pretty straightforward and standard process.
If you know more specifically what kind of items you’re looking for, then you can type them directly into the search bar. If you would rather search more broadly because you don’t have a specific item in mind, you can search by category.
Alternatively, you can try their “Featured Stores” page here, which has a couple of shops from each category listed. For example, the shop Wazakka sells something I’m familiar with–beautiful glassware from Okinawa! There are also stationery supplies from Nicker, tea and sweets from Tokichi, Yukata from Uncocon, and a bunch more.
My ZenPlus Review
Now that I’ve explained what ZenPlus is all about and their reported benefits to shopping with them, what do I think of their service? Overall, I really like them! Of course, I wouldn’t have chosen to do a sponsored post with them if I didn’t. There are a lot of websites these days that sell Japanese products online. It can be hard to find a good one that is easy to navigate in English and has fair prices.
Making sure you get a good and fair price is important. While some companies overcharge uninformed foreigners, that doesn’t seem to be a problem at all for the products I’ve looked at on ZenPlus.
Consider anime figures as an example. I couldn’t find some figures from ZenPlus on any other sites, except for eBay where they were being resold at a much more expensive price. For the figures I was able to find on other random sites, I noticed that ZenPlus had very competitive prices. In many cases, ZenPlus was even cheaper.
While the cheaper costs are fantastic, be sure to keep shipping costs in mind. Since these items are being shipped from Japan, shipping is obviously an extra cost that needs to be factored in. This is true for any store selling from Japan.
Fortunately, because ZenPlus is a marketplace, they can mitigate some of the shipping costs if you buy multiple items. I think that is one of the biggest benefits of shopping with them, especially compared to other Japanese online stores.
As an example, I added a Studio Ghibli hand towel that had a $15 shipping fee, a Shiny Mew Pokémon Card with a $25 shipping fee, and a fancy Japanese tea kiln with a $31 shipping fee. Individually, that is $71 for total shipping cost.
However, with all three in my cart, my shipping was only $54 for all three items. Buying multiple items from different stores on ZenPlus can save you money on shipping this way.
Another thing I appreciated was the site’s ease of use. A lot of Japanese websites look like they are from the 90s. ZenPlus has a modern aesthetic that is easy to use and navigate; plus, it was all in English as they are catering specifically to an overseas demographic.
Lastly, it is important to be sure that you are getting an authentic Japanese product and not a cheap or fake replica. ZenPlus works directly with all of the stores on their site to ensure all of the items are 100% authentic. So, if you buy a handmade glass cup from Wazakka, then you can be sure it was actually handmade in Okinawa.
Bottomline
Overall, ZenPlus has a lot going for it. I definitely recommend checking them out if you are looking for any Japanese products. Even if you aren’t currently looking to buy, I recommend taking a look at their site anyway because you might find something you didn’t even know you wanted!
If you are planning on checking out ZenPlus, make sure to take advantage of the 500 yen coupon code they are giving out for Japan Centric Newsletter Subscribers. The code is valid through June 10th, 2023. To get the code sign up for our newsletter down below!
