Frequently Asked Questions

Items for Sale

Is there an ingredients list in English?

All items are produced for the Japanese market and therefore only contain information written in Japanese.
If you are not sure about the ingredients because of allergies or other issues we recommend not buying such items.

Is there an English instruction available?

All items are produced for the Japanese market. Thus all instructions are only written in Japanese, but most items include easy to understand pictographs so that you can use it without understanding Japanese.
In case of DIY sets and a lot of other things you will find dozens of tutorials on the internet like on YouTube.

What's the shelf life of the products?

All products have different shelf life. Although the average shelf life is 6 month or longer from the day of manufacturing, in case of more "fresh" products such as potato snacks, Senbei, etc. the average shelf life is only 3 or 4 months. For Wagashi, Mochi, Daifuku, etc. the shelf life is again a bit shorter and usually around 2 months. If an item has a shelf life shorter than one month, NipponShop will not ship it. (Special discounted items excepted)

My product has passed the shelf-life or expiry date!

We do not ship items that have passed the expiry date but du to differences in writing dates around the world it can happen that some people think items have passed the shelf-life. This can especially happen when the year is not written with four numbers but only two.
In Japan, dates are written with the year at the beginning, followed by the months and than the day. E.g. 22.10.20 would be 2022 October the 20th.

Payment

How can I pay?

You can pay with your credit or debit card (we accept all major cards) or you can pay with PayPal.

Are my card data secure?

When you pay with your credit or debit card, all data will be proceeded directly to our payment service provider Stripe by using SSL. Stripe will processing your payment and neither we nor third parties will get in touch with your card details.

Why are the prices on the PayPal checkout displayed in JPY?

Our original prices are in Japanese Yen (JPY). When you use PayPal for checkout we can, unfortunately, only accept payments in JPY.
When you log in to your PayPal account you will be able to choose if the payment should be done in JPY or in your local currency but be aware that the exchange rate from PayPal may differ from ours so that the price you have to pay in your local currency can be higher than shown in our shop.

Shipping

From where do you ship?

We ship all items direct from Japan.

Do you ship to my country?

We ship to almost every country in the world with some limitations. If you can't find your country in the list during checkout please contact us. We will check if we can ship to your country and usually reply within 24h.

How much does shipping cost?

Shipping cost will be displayed in the shopping cart as well as on the check out page.
Depending on the destination country, you might choose between different shipping options.

How long does it take for the order to arrive?

It depends on the destination country, but most of our parcels arrive about 10 to 14 days after the parcel was handed over to Japanese Post Service.
Due to different circumstances, which we cannot control and have no influence over, the shipping time might be longer. These circumstances can be delays during custom clearance or delivery as well as busy seasons for post services like Christmas.

What's about customs?

Parcels from foreign countries are usually always checked by the customs of the recipient's country. If there are any duties or taxes to pay for your order depends on the quantity and/or items you have ordered. If duties or taxes apply for your parcel they have to be paid by your own at the local customs or might be collected at your front door by your postman.
For further details please contact you local customs.

Where is my order?

If you have chosen a shipping method with tracking, you should have received an email with a link redirecting you to the tracing site of your parcel so you can check where it is. You can also see the tracking link in your account.
Please note, that we cannot give you any other information about your parcel as the one you can see on the track and trace website.
If your shipping method does not include tracking, we are not able to locate your parcel and cannot give you any status information.

I only received part of my order. Where is the rest?

Depending on quantity or weight of your order we divide it into two or more separate parcels. Even though we send them all together at the same day they might be delivered on different days. Usually the other parcels will arrive in the following days.
For more details check the online tracing website. You should have received a tracking email for each parcel.