A New YumeTwins: Letter from Founder Ayumi Chikamoto

Hi there, I’m Ayumi, the founder of YumeTwins. I also founded its sister brands TokyoTreat, Sakuraco, and nomakenolife. I’d like to start by saying thank you for being here, whether you’re one of our wonderful YumeTwins subscribers, part of our community, or if you’re here for the first time. We can’t express how much we appreciate you.

Since 2016, my team and I have been lucky enough to share Japanese kawaii goods and kawaii culture with the world. In Japan, sometimes we take this culture for granted. Whenever I would send care packages to my friends overseas, many would request Japanese plushies and unique items that I didn’t realize were rare overseas. 

Thinking that there were many others who also wanted to own this little bit of Japan, and wanting to share kawaii culture with the world were my two big motivations for founding YumeTwins after the success of her sister brand, TokyoTreat. Our mission has always been clear: to spread the joy of authentic kawaii culture to everyone, everywhere around the world.

Over the last 5 years we’ve loved sharing our favorite kawaii goods with our family and fostering our wonderful community. We’ve also been learning more about you. Our large-scale survey last spring led to multiple group discussions where we met each other face to face. We were able to discover your stories and listen to your feedback. Your comments and opinions really do matter to us, and help us to grow so much. So from October 1st 2021, we’ll be refreshing and renewing YumeTwins, bringing you a whole new Japanese kawaii experience. 

A Look at What’s New

The most noticeable change to your YumeTwins experience are the items that you’ll be getting in every YumeTwins box. We’ve refocused our curation process to be more in tune with our community’s needs.

From here on out, we’ll be featuring 5-7 items with a greater focus on variety and quality. Expect stationery, household & lifestyle goods like kitchenware or blankets, and more character items from brands like Sailor Moon & Cardcaptor Sakura that you’ve been asking for.

YumeTwins Originals:

One of our most exciting introductions are the YumeTwins Originals that we’ll be introducing periodically into your boxes. Created and designed by our in-house kawaii experts who take inspirations from the pop culture that surrounds us, look forward to YumeTwins originals such as plushies, electronics and more.

Our first Original comes in November 2021’s Magical Level-Up box, the Magical Nyan Nyan Plushie, designed with YumeTwins motifs like hearts and stars to commemorate the launch of our rebranded box.

YumeTwins Exclusives:

We’ve been hard a work creating partnerships with both well-known and loved brands, as well as up-and-coming kawaii brands to bring you exclusive collab items. Keep an eye out for future boxes featuring exclusive anime and Sanrio goods you can only find through us.

November 2021 will see the latest addition to our exclusive item roster – the Cardcaptor Sakura Blanket.

Licensed Character Boxes:

One of my favorite boxes to curate are the boxes where we feature a single brand, character, or series. For example, the YumeTwins June 2021 Ghibli Lunch Date box. There is a unique challenge to these boxes, finding items that truly blend and mesh well. But the final result always leaves me filled with pride. Seeing the reactions of fans from those series brings me true joy. Look forward to more boxes like this moving forward.

New Box Design:

Beyond just the items, we’ve looked at how we can improve your experience in other ways. Starting with your box itself, we’ve redesigned it from scratch, removing wasted space so that we can pass the savings on to you. In addition, certain boxes will have limited edition designs that you can easily collect and enjoy for a long time.

Culture Guide:

As a way to enrich your experience and further your connection to Japan’s kawaii culture, we’ll be including a 16+ Page Kawaii Culture Guide into your box. Written by our Tokyo based team, we’ll be sharing How-To’s, contests and interesting articles about the latest kawaii trends.

Website:

Our website has been given a full makeover too, featuring new and improved background information on Japan’s kawaii culture and highlighting members of our community, who are at the heart of our service. See further information on your box items as well, and enjoy regularly updated blog content. 

Improvements Born Through Challenge

You might be asking ‘why did you decide to update YumeTwins?’, especially when we have been operating for 5 years. Our inspiration actually came from an unlikely place – the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021. 

During the height of COVID, we were forced to adapt to new situations every day. As a small company, when something unexpected happens it can have a massive impact on how the structure you worked so hard to create continues to operate. Shipping became a major challenge for us, and at times we didn’t think that we’d be able to recover.

But, knowing during those difficult times that YumeTwins was able to bring a little bit of happiness and connection to Japan when life was disrupted for many people meant that giving up was not an option.

We got creative with how we ship and deliver our boxes, eventually partnering with a high speed delivery service to deliver your boxes no matter what. However, that opened a new challenge – how efficiently are we using the space in your YumeTwins box? This led us to our next big and creative idea. 

Simply by optimizing the size of your box and how we pack, we found a way to pass the savings on to you, by upgrading the items you receive in your YumeTwins box. 

Although we’ve faced many troubles in the last year and a half, and are sure to face more moving forward, it’s thanks to your support that we have been able to grow and evolve. And we hope that you’ll continue to enjoy the product of that evolution through the unique and authentic kawaii experience of YumeTwins.  

The Important Details

Our renewed YumeTwins is available for purchase from Friday October 1st, 2021. 

Due to the major improvements in quality and variety of our items, we will be updating our base pricing structure from $35.00 to $37.50 USD for our monthly plan from October 1st 2021. Please see this FAQ for further details on pricing increase per plan.

For New Subscribers:
You will join us under our updated pricing structure (starting from $32.50 per month).

For Current 3, 6, or 12 Month Subscribers:
The cost of your plan will not increase until your next renewal. If you decide to renew or extend your plan by November 1st, 2021, you can take advantage of the pre-renewal pricing.

For Current Monthly Subscribers:
The price of your plan will not increase until November 1st, 2021. Therefore, you will have a month-long period to get the improved YumeTwins with the same price as before.

Moving Forward Together

At the heart of our business is you, our YumeTwins community. And often we take a lot of inspiration, energy and motivation from our interactions with you on social media and our community forum. If you haven’t joined in before, you’re more than welcome to be part of the fun. Seeing your messages and monthly photo contest entries with your YumeTwins items is something I and the team look forward to every month.

And as always, if you have any trouble or concerns, or if you can’t find the answer to a question that you may have on our site, please always feel free to contact our support team here.

The last year has been difficult for many of us. But it is also a time that we were able to grow and evolve. And knowing our community is there to support us fills us with so much gratitude. In turn we can share the amazing kawaii culture with our new and improved kawaii experience for many years to come.  

We hope you’ll enjoy your YumeTwins box as much as we’ve loved getting it ready for you! Check this month’s item lineup here, and prepare for a kawaii ride!

Love,

Ayumi Chikamoto