[Important] 200,000 yen is the turning point! Great shipping methods

Conclusion

Delivery to Honshu/Kyushu - less than 200,000 yen... Postal service is cheap
・Over 200,000 yen...UPS is cheaper

Shipping to Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Okinawa - All product prices...Postal service is cheaper

If you just want the bottom line, this is it.

Below is an explanation of why this happens.

The key point is whether the total of the product price, insurance fee, and shipping fee is within or exceeds 200,000 yen .

Regardless of whether it is personal or commercial import, all products arriving from overseas must go through customs. If the amount exceeds the tax-free amount, customs duties and associated fees will be incurred.

Although it is not widely known, postal customs clearance fees change significantly at the 200,000 yen threshold. If the amount is less than 200,000 yen, it will be 200 yen, but if it is over 200,000 yen, it will be 6,600 yen.
* Customs clearance fees for international mail (Japan Post)

・Under 200,000 yen	Postal customs clearance fee: 200 yen		UPS 0 yen
・Over 200,000 yen	Postal customs clearance fee: 6,600 yen		UPS 0 yen

So I compared shipping costs and customs fees.

Specifically, it is as follows. Austrian Post is abbreviated as Post. Also, 1 euro = 160 yen.

First, the post fee.

As you can see, the shipping fee itself is cheap, but when the total is over 200,000 yen, the additional customs fee of 6,600 yen has a huge impact.

Then compare it to UPS rates.
The difference was calculated by subtracting the Postal fee from the UPS fee . In other words, if the difference is positive, Postal is cheaper , and if it is negative, UPS is cheaper .

UPS charges the same for Honshu and Kyushu, but Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Okinawa are treated as remote areas and additional charges will be incurred, so the charges are calculated separately for these two regions.

For Honshu and Kyushu, Post is cheaper when the product price is less than 200,000 yen, and UPS is cheaper when the product price is over 200,000 yen .

For example, if you send a product with a weight category of 6.0 to Japan, it will cost 9,579 yen with UPS. On the other hand, if you use Austrian Post, it will cost 7,237 yen for items under 200,000 yen, which is 2,342 yen cheaper. However, if the item is over 200,000 yen, it will cost 13,637 yen, which means you will pay 4,058 yen more.

For Hokkaido, Shikoku and Okinawa, Post will be cheaper for all product prices, regardless of the product price.

Similarly, if we compare products in weight category 6.0, the UPS shipping fee is 14,622 yen, but the postal service costs 7,237 yen for items under 200,000 yen and 13,637 yen for items over 200,000 yen, meaning the postal service is 7,386 yen and 986 yen cheaper, respectively.

UPS delivers faster than other companies, so it is not appropriate to compare delivery times simply based on cost. A good example of this is when flights were reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and mail took more than a month to arrive, whereas international courier services using their own vehicles delivered in roughly the same amount of time as usual.

However, I thought it would be useful to clearly show the basic price comparisons, so I put them together. There are other comparison articles out there too, so please take a look and decide for yourself.

*Ideally, it would be confusing to only display one shipping method, but we allow you to choose for the following reasons.

1. The situation is different for Honshu and Kyushu, and for Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Okinawa, where remote area charges apply.
2. Due to large fluctuations in exchange rates, the price boundary for products around 200,000 yen can easily move.
3. The needs of "people who want fast delivery" and "people who want cheap delivery" are different.

*Although DHL's delivery quality is almost the same as UPS's, we do not use it because it always charges a tax payment fee of 1,980 yen.

*These prices will change when UPS or Austrian Post change their rates. Prices also change constantly due to exchange rate fluctuations. The amount you put in your cart on the product page will be the latest amount.