Green Tea Vendor Topic

[vgamedude]

I think we are talking about the .com site here.

I was referring to the actual name . "Thés du Japon" ... , so I assume the western cooperating counterpart is FR. And the only explenation which comes into my mind here is that the deal between JP and FR has changed , so the payments in yen and other currencies are not at the same rate ( might not be even going to the same bank account from now ) .
If I'm correct , then screaming and shouting will not decrease the prices to the fair JPY rate, but will either raise up the prices in yen or disabling the yen visibility to non JP users ( base on IP , which be bypassed with VPN ) .
In any case, they can congratulate themselves, as buyers still want to stick with them despite the extreme price raise. In other shops cases , I believe, the people would just go like "pfff....lets buy from someone else then " . But here it almost looks like " let's write them an open letter " ...I'm impressed by the loyalty and wish to be able work out our selves to this stage as well.

Best I can tell the business is just run like any other Japanese business under Japanese law exclusively and has naught to do with France. From their site: "Made up of French and Japanese tea enthusiasts, Thés du Japon reflects the complexity and high standards required to operate at the world-class level. Thés du Japon is governed by Japanese law, and is registered at the Osaka Chamber of Commerce in Western Japan." .

I guess no one knows the real reason they decided to do this besides them. The easiest explanation is that it probably nets them more money from sales from foreigners, but who knows if that is the real reason or not. Maybe something changed in Japan but best I can tell the other Japanese vendors are still functioning same as always.

[Randy the Intern]

In any case, they can congratulate themselves, as buyers still want to stick with them despite the extreme price raise. In other shops cases , I believe, the people would just go like "pfff....lets buy from someone else then " . But here it almost looks like " let's write them an open letter " ...I'm impressed by the loyalty and wish to be able work out our selves to this stage as well.

This is only a half truth. Some people will stay, but many will shop somewhere else. I don't think there's a single tea vendor who can say their tea is so good that they've cornered the market and can charge whatever they want for their "superior product". It's certainly been enough for me to disqualify them from any consideration. Once I see someone act dishonestly I almost never want to support them. Others who have a long history buying from them are writing letters because they don't want to break that relationship, but it can be broken nonetheless. I wouldn't even say TDJ has the best product. They just have a unique product.

At the end of the day, I don't see this as a situation where they should "congratulate themselves" because I see this as sowing the seeds of distrust in their community. That's going to have a much bigger impact than you might think.

[teatray]

JPY doesn't work for my European address either. That's really disappointing. I've shopped pottery & teas at JPY prices (though I did make the mistake to pay in USD and then EUR on my 1st and 2nd orders before noticing what's going on and was somewhat disgusted by the difference even then). This step is a good way to make me purchase less / prefer other shops. Some Japanese shops I buy from do the opposite and actually deduct local sales tax (10%) before shipping internationally to me (paying in JPY). It's true that Japanese banks can charge nasty commissions for foreign exchange, but that's not a problem TDJ is having when receiving payments in JPY. It's absolutely possible to invoice & receive payments in JPY & TWD via PayPal. In that case it's the customers who are often tricked by PayPal into paying in their local currency (USD, EUR, etc) with PayPal doing the conversion to JPY/TWD at horrendous rates (it would be better to charge your card in the foreign currency). In case of TdJ, you don't even need to go through PayPal, as their shop can process card payments directly. That's what I've been using: less fees for them & less danger to me being accidentally tricked, if I misclick on PayPal's site. The payment they receive is in JPY. I've haggled with TWD vendors who complained about PayPal's additional fees when exchanging (higher in Taiwan than in other places) and they happily accepted TWD payments, giving the appropriate discount.

edit: Just did a check with one teapot and one sencha. The difference between JPY and USD price is 57%!

[vgamedude]

JPY doesn't work for my European address either. That's really disappointing. I've shopped pottery & teas at JPY prices (though I did make the mistake to pay in USD and then EUR on my 1st and 2nd orders before noticing what's going on and was somewhat disgusted by the difference even then). This step is a good way to make me purchase less / prefer other shops. Some Japanese shops I buy from do the opposite and actually deduct local sales tax (10%) before shipping internationally to me (paying in JPY). It's true that Japanese banks can charge nasty commissions for foreign exchange, but that's not a problem TDJ is having when receiving payments in JPY. It's absolutely possible to invoice & receive payments in JPY & TWD via PayPal. In that case it's the customers who are often tricked by PayPal into paying in their local currency (USD, EUR, etc) with PayPal doing the conversion to JPY/TWD at horrendous rates (it would be better to charge your card in the foreign currency). In case of TdJ, you don't even need to go through PayPal, as their shop can process card payments directly. That's what I've been using: less fees for them & less danger to me being accidentally tricked, if I misclick on PayPal's site. The payment they receive is in JPY. I've haggled with TWD vendors who complained about PayPal's additional fees when exchanging (higher in Taiwan than in other places) and they happily accepted TWD payments, giving the appropriate discount.

edit: Just did a check with one teapot and one sencha. The difference between JPY and USD price is 57%!

57 percent is a lot. In my head I was thinking that my order was around 30-40 percent compared to paying in USD, but I guess I actually was too conservative in my estimate.

You shop for a lot of Japanese tea it sounds like, are there vendors with similar selection and variety of single origin Japanese tea that you have used? I feel like I've not seen many Japanese vendors with a selection quite like TDJ.

[Bok]

That was his usp: selling stuff that is hard to find on the Japan market as it’s not wha the majority there prefers to drink. I doubt he had many Japanese customers to begin with. If any mostly walk-in to the shop/teahouse.

[aet]

At the end of the day, I don't see this as a situation where they should "congratulate themselves" because I see this as sowing the seeds of distrust in their community. That's going to have a much bigger impact than you might think.

If you are correct, then they will do something about it alright.
By in my opinion , the people who were buying in JPY before are still minority. From what I saw on the website , you have to switch to JP language in order to see JPY prices, which makes inconvenient as you have to run site trough some translation module / browser extesnion. I still don't have any on my browser and I guess , not many tea drinkers are high tech enthusiats and wouldn't even suspect that prices in JPY might be much higher than in USD or EUR and very same people probably not even participate on some teaforums ( to find out those details ) ...so those are , I believe, majority buyers.
I understand that disappointment, feeling of being "betrayed" or something like that. And of course naturally want to vendor know " you are bad, look I told to everybody now , do something about that ! "
But from business point of view , you never want to be unfair to some group of the customers ( unless you run some marketing like free shipping ) , let alone to make it visible ( although just for certain group ) . That would be not logical . Therefore I fail to believe theory " They want to make more money on foreigners " ( unless you are in Asia and buying stuff offline without displayed prices, that's common ) , that just doesn't sound right although rightfully it creates this impression.
Just to avoid any possible misunderstandings , I'm not getting paid for the disappointed customers support here
Our biz is not related to their's but I just feel their pain , because I believe this change is inevitable to them and they have to face some negative impact related to that now.

[teatray]

You shop for a lot of Japanese tea it sounds like, are there vendors with similar selection and variety of single origin Japanese tea that you have used? I feel like I've not seen many Japanese vendors with a selection quite like TDJ.

I've been in a mainly oolong phase for the longest time now, expanding from TW oolongs into yancha, so not so much JP greens shopping. Still, my last order from them is less than an year ago and not too small. I do not know another vendor who specializes in single origin teas & will miss that. Matcha & gyokuro are best when blended anyway, I think, though I did get into the habit of exploring single origin sencha, to the point of not enjoying blends as much.

[Randy the Intern]

At the end of the day, I don't see this as a situation where they should "congratulate themselves" because I see this as sowing the seeds of distrust in their community. That's going to have a much bigger impact than you might think.

If you are correct, then they will do something about it alright.
By in my opinion , the people who were buying in JPY before are still minority. From what I saw on the website , you have to switch to JP language in order to see JPY prices, which makes inconvenient as you have to run site trough some translation module / browser extesnion. I still don't have any on my browser and I guess , not many tea drinkers are high tech enthusiats and wouldn't even suspect that prices in JPY might be much higher than in USD or EUR and very same people probably not even participate on some teaforums ( to find out those details ) ...so those are , I believe, majority buyers.
I understand that disappointment, feeling of being "betrayed" or something like that. And of course naturally want to vendor know " you are bad, look I told to everybody now , do something about that ! "
But from business point of view , you never want to be unfair to some group of the customers ( unless you run some marketing like free shipping ) , let alone to make it visible ( although just for certain group ) . That would be not logical . Therefore I fail to believe theory " They want to make more money on foreigners " ( unless you are in Asia and buying stuff offline without displayed prices, that's common ) , that just doesn't sound right although rightfully it creates this impression.
Just to avoid any possible misunderstandings , I'm not getting paid for the disappointed customers support here
Our biz is not related to their's but I just feel their pain , because I believe this change is inevitable to them and they have to face some negative impact related to that now.

Pro tip: Google Chrome auto translates webpages. This isn’t an issue for almost anyone. You don’t need to be high tech.

From my point of view, this is directly being unfair to a certain group of customers. And it seems voluntary.

They obviously knew this was happening with many of their international customers and they decided to completely change it without saying anything? At least make a blog post or something explaining the situation. If they weren’t trying to hide it, I wouldn’t think so poorly of them at the moment.

[vgamedude]

You shop for a lot of Japanese tea it sounds like, are there vendors with similar selection and variety of single origin Japanese tea that you have used? I feel like I've not seen many Japanese vendors with a selection quite like TDJ.

I've been in a mainly oolong phase for the longest time now, expanding from TW oolongs into yancha, so not so much JP greens shopping. Still, my last order from them is less than an year ago and not too small. I do not know another vendor who specializes in single origin teas & will miss that. Matcha & gyokuro are best when blended anyway, I think, though I did get into the habit of exploring single origin sencha, to the point of not enjoying blends as much.

I've not tried a lot of Japanese tea but I really did enjoy the single origin sencha I got. More than other Japanese teas I had tried, and a Japanese Oolong I got from him was really good and unique as well. That has been my experience in doing browsing for Japanese teas though, that there arent many vendors I can find offering something like TDJ has.

[GaoShan]

I don't drink much Japanese green tea because I find it to be too grassy, bitter, and vegetal for me, no matter how I brew it. The few teas I've been given from TdJ are the only ones to go against that trend. Their sencha and black teas were fruity, floral, and usually not too bitter, making them closer to what I enjoy. To be fair, my experience with high-quality Japanese green tea is very limited, and I don't think I'd ever be a frequent buyer, but it's still disappointing that it's gotten more expensive. I feel bad for everyone who considers TdJ to be one of their go-to vendors.

[teatray]

By in my opinion , the people who were buying in JPY before are still minority.
[...]
Our biz is not related to their's but I just feel their pain , because I believe this change is inevitable to them and they have to face some negative impact related to that now.

If they are such a minority, why not let these loyal customers continue shopping that way?

The change doesn't seem inevitable. If it was, they could provide arguments for it. There's a built-in 10% profit when selling to foreign customers at Japanese customer-facing prices (as they don't need to charge the local sales tax). All things considered, I'm happy paying that, but not another 57% on top.

[aet]

By in my opinion , the people who were buying in JPY before are still minority.
[...]
Our biz is not related to their's but I just feel their pain , because I believe this change is inevitable to them and they have to face some negative impact related to that now.

If they are such a minority, why not let these loyal customers continue shopping that way?

The change doesn't seem inevitable. If it was, they could provide arguments for it. There's a built-in 10% profit when selling to foreign customers at Japanese customer-facing prices (as they don't need to charge the local sales tax). All things considered, I'm happy paying that, but not another 57% on top.

Maybe because FR side and JP side have changed their cooperation policy which can't talk about in public ( internal business issues ) .

[buullon]

I emailed them as well, and got the same answer. I explained the situation, that I was not paying in USD/EUR, and asked if they could not revert it, and if not could they adjust their exchange rate. They just ignored the questions and mentioned a "technical reason", I still did not understand if it was a side effect or intentional, since they are not willing to work on solving it, I assume it is intentional. I guess I'll just shop elsewhere until something changes.

I would not have complained and would have kept buying there if they just increased all their prices for everyone. But having "an update it made it technically impossible" is just an unacceptable excuse.

EDIT: To the person above, it's a Japanese company, owned by French people living in Japan, there are no French operating side, payments go to a Japanese PayPal account. Japan is relatively open to international transactions.

[aet]

I emailed them as well, and got the same answer. I explained the situation, that I was not paying in USD/EUR, and asked if they could not revert it, and if not could they adjust their exchange rate. They just ignored the questions and mentioned a "technical reason", I still did not understand if it was a side effect or intentional, since they are not willing to work on solving it, I assume it is intentional. I guess I'll just shop elsewhere until something changes.

I would not have complained and would have kept buying there if they just increased all their prices for everyone. But having "an update it made it technically impossible" is just an unacceptable excuse.

EDIT: To the person above, it's a Japanese company, owned by French people living in Japan, there are no French operating side, payments go to a Japanese PayPal account. Japan is relatively open to international transactions.

ok then. Forget about what I wrote above . Thanks for clearing it out.

[Bok]

Maybe a different way to go at it: to those who buy a lot of Japanese tea - was it compared to other vendors better price for quality before the change?

Maybe the original pricing was just too low to make it viable for them to sustain? Take for example Hojo, which is price quite highly (for decent quality, but still).

I just came back from Japan and the yen is super low compared to Taiwan dollars, very dangerous for the luggage space, fills up fast…