April 2026 Updates
It's been two months since I announced the closure of Redpants USA and despite all the work it took to get to that point, I've still been going almost non-stop since then to continue getting things set up for Redpants Japan. The majority is done but there’s still a lot left to do, especially ironing out the kinks to make everything function as smoothly as possible. I've made a lot of progress but not everything is finished, and I'll be covering some of that in this Blog post.
Shipping Options and Updates
Since closing down Redpants USA, the main change as far as shipping is concerned is that items “kept in stock at Redpants” are now in Japan rather than in the US. Anything that was previously not available for shipment to a certain country is still not available to that country. For example, I still can’t ship VelocityAP products to Australia or ship BC Racing coilovers to England.
I don’t have all shipping options set up for all products, so there may be some snags when you put your address into your shopping cart or enter it during checkout. If you get a message saying no shipping options are available, check the Ordering and Shipping notes on the product listings - every product listing has one and should say where the product ships from and if there are any shipping restrictions. If you don’t see any issues (or just want to skip doing that entirely), feel free to email me. If you do email me, please include a list of everything you’re trying to order (or a screenshot of your shopping cart) and the country in which you’re located.
If there are any issues with shipping options and I can ship an order to you, I’m always happy to do a custom invoice.
For what I have completed setting up, several shipping services are used for order fulfillment and they vary depending on the items being ordered, the delivery address for the order, and the preference of speed vs cost.
UPS vs Yamato (UPS)
Two of the shipping options available during checkout are UPS and Yamato (UPS). Yamato is a Japanese domestic shipping carrier that uses UPS for delivery of international shipments. It's usually much cheaper than dealing with UPS directly because it acts as a shipment consolidator to reduce the cost of the international transit of a shipment. Once the shipment is in the country in which it is being delivered, the shipment is handed over to UPS who then delivers it.
Yamato and UPS each use their own tracking numbers for a shipment, despite both handling that shipment. Since UPS is the carrier delivering the shipment, I update orders with the UPS tracking number when I ship them. However, this tracking number will only say that the label was created until UPS has the shipment. If there is any concern, please contact me and I will happily provide the Yamato tracking number as well. Keep in mind Yamato's tracking number (and the information associated with it) only work while the shipment is within Japan. Once the shipment leaves Japan and is handed over to UPS, the UPS tracking number must be used.
As for which to choose... Yamato (UPS) will be less expensive but can take an extra week or two or delivery compared to using UPS itself. UPS will be more expensive but is usually delivered much more quickly. Actual delivery times for Yamato are all over the place - I’ve had some Yamato (UPS) shipments delivered in less than a week, and some than have taken 3 or 4 weeks. Between these two options, if you want a shipment delivered within a week and don’t mind paying more, UPS is the way to go. If you want to save money and don’t mind potentially waiting, Yamato (UPS) is the way to go.
Japan Post
Japan Post is Japan’s domestic mail service. Like Yamato, they can be used to ship internationally - they use the local mail service in the delivering country for the actual delivery of a shipment. So, when I ship using Japan Post to Australia, Japan Post takes the shipment from me and hands it over to Australia Post so they can deliver it to my customer.
Unlike Yamato, Japan Post’s tracking numbers are compatible with other postal services. When I ship an order using Japan Post, I’ll update the order with the Japan Post tracking number but will say it’s being delivered by the receiving country’s postal service. The Japan Post tracking number works in both carriers’ tracking systems.
Shipments to the US
Even though the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration's tariffs are illegal and payments for those tariffs can be refunded, the ongoing nonsense with them is still causing problems with shipments going to the United States. As such, duties are still being collected and Japan Post (and many other countries' postal services) are still refusing to deliver to the US. Prior to the original illegal tariffs being implemented, Japan Post was my go-to shipping method due to its generally-solid cost and speed. Unfortunately, the option still isn’t available for those of you in the US so shipping options are still limited.
In addition to the tariffs themselves, the Trump Administration also eliminated the de minimis exemption for low-value shipments, which allowed any shipments worth less than $800 going into the US to be exempt from import duties. By removing the exemption, virtually all shipments going into the US are subject to import duties (including the tariffs).
I’ve already covered this many times, including in my last Blog post, but the situation is still stupid so I’m still talking about it.
Order Confirmation Emails
One of the things I'm still working on is synchronizing my Online Store and payment processor. As it is now, a payment confirmation email is sent as soon as an email is placed in the Online Store, but an order confirmation email isn't sent until I manually update the order to reflect that a payment has been received for it. This process should be happening automatically but, for whatever reason, it isn’t.
The only thing being delayed is the order confirmation email being sent to the customer. Orders themselves are not being delayed. Being out of synch isn't causing any delays for orders shipping out orders - it's a quick process for me to update an order and doesn't slow down an order from being fulfilled. I’ve even shipped out a few orders before even updating the order status, and those customers may have gotten shipment notification emails before order confirmations!
I'm sorry for any confusion or concern that this may have caused so far, I'm hoping to have it fixed soon.
Emails in general
In addition to order confirmation emails being delayed, I’ve also noticed some emails coming or going have dropped off. First thing’s first - if you don’t get a response from me, check your Spam folder. Also, if you made a typo in your email address while using the entry form on my Contact page, it’s impossible for me to reply to you. In some cases, my emails have gotten blocked (for example, Spectrum in the US has done this a few times over the years). For those of you that are replying to an email submitted through the original Redpants Japan website, I’ve moved everything to a new platform so I won’t be able to receive emails being routed through it. Or, occasionally, I might have accidentally marked an email as read when I didn’t actually read it, or I might have just dropped the ball getting back to you.
If in doubt, please email me again! I try to answer all emails within 48 hours (usually within 24 hours) so if you don’t hear back from me the same day or next day, please feel free to email me again just in case. Sometimes it takes longer if I’m especially busy and lots of emails are coming in, but I do try to keep on top of them and I apologize if any have been missed, regardless of the reason.
Booking Redpants Tours
Redpants Tours are available for those of you that come to Japan! These include both Guided Driving Tours and Ride-Along Tours, so you can either follow me while driving yourself, or be my passenger as I take you around. Redpants also offers multi-day tours, tour organization assistance, and translation services that fall outside of the standard guided tours. I’ll continue adding information for each of these as I continue building out the new [now-current] Redpants website.
Booking a tour
I’d originally made an online booking system for my driving tours, but honestly it was unintuitive and super janky, so I pulled it down. While I try to figure out how to make an online booking system that I’m actually satisfied with, please email me if you’re interested in taking a tour. All I need to know are your prospective dates, and if you’re driving or riding along. If the dates are available, I’ll have a series of questions for you and then will then get you all set up. It’s a really easy process and the conversation will help ensure you’re getting the tour you expect.
Dietary [or other] restrictions
I recently had a couple clients that had dietary restrictions and preferences that wouldn’t allow them to eat at any of the lunch spots I usually use, so I had to find alternatives. Until this booking, it hadn’t been an issue and luckily I asked if there were any last concerns they had before the driving tour and that’s when they told me about their relatively-strict diets.
Planning around certain diets (or other restrictions) usually isn’t an issue as long as I know in advance and with enough time to make the necessary arrangements. Since all of my tours are private, I can alter them and tailor them to my clients’ needs.
Unzipped Drivers Club
I’ve been meaning to do something with the Redpants Unzipped “brand” for a long, long time with the main idea to be the fun side of Redpants. Originally it was meant to cover events and travel, but I was stretched too thin to create any actual content from the myriad events I attended and travels I traversed. I made a second YouTube channel after moving to Japan so I could continue those same plans while also adding a lot more content from Japan. The last few years haven’t exactly gone as planned, so Unzipped continued to sit on the backburner. But now with the advent of Redpants Tours, I finally found a way to keep things going while I muster up the energy to get into making videos about events and travels… the Unzipped Drivers’ Club!
I’ll have more info about it coming soon when I announce its official launch, but the basic premise is that my Guided Driving Tour clients are automatically enrolled in the Unzipped Drivers’ Club, which gives them a 5% discount on all products and services from Redpants 合同会社 (“Redpants Japan”). The official launch announcement will be coming soon - and, don’t worry if you’ve already done a driving tour, all my clients that qualify are enrolled even prior to the launch.
Newsletter
Those of you that have been following Redpants for a long time are probably well aware that I had a Newsletter for Redpants USA and I rarely used it. With Redpants Japan, I fully intend to carry on that tradition! I have a Newsletter signup form on the Redpants home page and I usually include it at the end of my Blog posts as well so I’ll be doing that here, too.
As I just said, I rarely send out Newsletters and try to only do so when there’s actually important news or info to share. Nobody likes getting a bunch of spam and last thing I want to do is perpetuate the spamification of email, so please don’t worry about signing up - the number of emails you get from Redpants will be absolutely minimal.