First of all, thanks for being an awesome J-List customer. Over the past 18 (!!) years, both I and the staff of J-List have had tons of fun, finding rare and wonderful products from Japan for our customers and shipping a mind-blowing 1.3 million orders to 500,000 customers. And now we’ve got some great new news for everyone: the upcoming launch of our totally new website.
I started J-List back in October of 1996, the year after a company called Netscape exploded onto the scene but a year before anyone had heard of Google. The goal was to make an online shop that could bring products to customers direct from Japan, rather than shipping products to the U.S. first, and I knew from day one that we’d have no problem finding exciting items to offer on the site. Along the way I made another discovery: J-List’s primary mission wasn’t to sell Totoro bento boxes and “Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend” kanji T-shirts, but to be a bridge between Japan and the rest of the world through our email newsletter and blog.
The web was a very different time back in those days: we all connected to the nascent Internet with slow modems, and computers were nearly always big beige boxes. The idea of accessing information from a mobile device was far off in the future…and yet, that future is here now.
The new J-List and JBOX websites will bring lots of new features, first and foremost a unified experience, no matter what device you’re using, be it a Mac or PC, a tablet, or a smartphone. Retina displays will be supported, and you’ll always know exactly what the status of your order is by checking the site. If you’re on a touch-enabled device, you’ll be able to swipe through J-List products with your finger, and all site features will work no matter what device you’re using. Internally we’re also changing, becoming more digital in our warehouse so you know the exact status of your order by checking the website. We think you’re going to love the changes.
Of course we couldn’t launch a new website without our beloved mascot, Megumi. She’s been updated too, and we hope you like her new new design. Keep your eye out for her seasonal outfits and fun cosplay!
Here’s a review of our new site roll-out plans:
- First, an important issue: while all customer accounts will be imported to the new site, wishlists will all be reset. You should therefore take a screenshot of your current wishlist if it’s important to you.
- The J-List website will go down for about a day on Tuesday, U.S. time, to facilitate all the changes. During the switchover, we hope you’ll chat with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
- J-List points will go away (we’ll bring them back later). If you have any outstanding balance of J-List points, we’ll be converting this to a store credit for you. This will take a few days, and we’ll post details in an upcoming J-List update.
- After the site launches, all logins should work as normal. If something breaks (please, don’t let anything break), we’ll post updates to Twitter.
Thanks and remember, you’ve got a friend in Japan!
Peter and the J-List Team
