Once again, Fresh Stock is moving shop! California was never meant to be a long term stay, but it was fun while it lasted. We will eventually land in Chicago, with a short stopover in Oklahoma along the way. Orders received through May 27 will be shipped on May 28. Orders received after May 27 will not be fulfilled before June 6. After a couple of weeks catching up with friends and family in the OKC metro, we'll take one last jog up to Chicagoland, where we hope to lay down roots for the long-term. This should be the end of our nomadic lifestyle and the beginning of lots of new developments at Fresh Stock.

The only downside to having a small operation is that we sometimes have to step away from the business entirely. This is the case this April. Orders received after April 1 will not be fulfilled before April 13.

​We're also happy to say we have a shipment arriving from Japan this week. So upon our return to business as usual, we will be restocking a number of sold-out products and announcing a handful of new ones. Please check back for our product announcements. 

If you follow us on Facebook, you'll know we participated in local pop-up market twice in December in our current home base of Redding, CA. It was a great time to meet customers face to face and let them handle our products. We love being able to share the stories behind each product we select to sell, and that includes answering questions via email as well. We plan to do more pop-ups in 2016, and having a brick and mortar store is definitely something we foresee down the road.

To all our customers browsing Fresh Stock from the Great White North, we have some good news: lower shipping rates! After our recent relocation from Japan to the United States, we created shipping prices based on rates available from the United States Postal Service. But until now, we had only set a domestic rate and an international rate. And while most countries fit nicely into the international pricing structure, cheaper rates are available for nearby Canada. These rates have now been applied to our shipping rules, and they will appear automatically if you enter a Canadian shipping address. 

As announced at the end of April, Fresh Stock has made a big move. While we continue to offer a tightly curated collection of Made-in-Japan stationery products, we are now offering said products from the United States. We are temporarily operating nomadically, presently shipping packages from the midwest, but expect us to land on the West Coast in a couple more months. 

Our most loyal fans know we've been back online for about a month. Now we're making it official, and to celebrate, we want to share a wave of new products that we picked up before our exit from Japan.  Most of these additions are from brands that are new to Fresh Stock, including Pilot, Hum, Mitsubishi Pencil, and Kokuyo. Please check out all of our new products below.

We look forward to serving you by continuing our mission to find unique Japanese products with thoughtful designs to inspire you and make your creative endeavors a little more enjoyable.

We’re excited to announce that Fresh Stock will soon be closing down shop in Japan and re-opening in the United States. This change will not affect our product selection, and we're actually planning to introduce a number of new products after the move. Being based in the US will allow us to offer more competitive and timely shipping rates to our North American customers. We're also planning to offer some regular free shipping options with minimum purchase. 

After the move, shipping prices will likely increase for our loyal fans living in Asia. While our entire operation will become based out of the United States in the short-term, we are considering drop shipping Trusco Tool Boxes (our heaviest and costliest items to ship) to those customers living in close proximity to Japan. Please contact us if you live near Japan and are interested in a custom shipping quote on a Trusco order, and we will take such requests on a case by case basis.

Our last orders will ship from Japan on May 4. Please consider the time difference between Japan and your own country to ensure we have received your order before our final shipping window. We will not be taking orders between May 4 and May 19. Orders after May 19 will be sent from the United States. Thank you for your support.

We at Fresh Stock will be leaving Japan for three weeks to celebrate the holidays with our families in the United States. This unfortunately means we will have to close up shop while we are gone. Our last orders will be shipped by December 17 (Japan time), and orders received afterwards will not be fulfilled until the week of January 5. 

If you are hoping to place a Christmas order, we highly recommend opting for Express Mail Service. EMS only takes a few days to many countries and less than six to most. We cannot guarantee shipping times, but  an order placed before our December 17 cutoff should arrive by Christmas via EMS.

We thank you for your understanding, and we hope you have a safe and happy holiday season.

Our stationery Christmas tree was built with the following products:

Fresh Stock began as a hobby in 2009 when I was living in eastern Hyogo Prefecture, between Kobe and Osaka. I was spending a lot of my free time seeking out well-designed cafes and stores, concentrating mostly on boutiques in Kobe and Osaka's fashionable Horie neighborhoods. I struck up a friendship with Daisuke Matsue, then the store manager for APC Kobe. Daisuke was working on a number of side projects, and we talked at length about how we could facilitate more international creative collaboration. 

Of the many ideas discussed, Fresh Stock was the first project that actually took root in the form of creative consulting. I had hoped to make a little money at it, but I was more interested in connecting with Japanese creatives and craftsmen — people who were passionate about making things with excellence. I ended up helping Daisuke contact a few companies overseas, do a little translation, and finally import some furniture and accessories from Portland to Japan. Daisuke later became a regional manager at APC Japan but eventually left to pursue his personal projects. Currently, he runs Biotop Nurseries in Osaka and is involved in a number of other ventures (mondoverde, CHAKI, merde).

After some time, I returned to the States, got married to my wonderful wife, and later we moved back to Japan together. On our arrival, I found myself between jobs for a brief period, so I took it as a chance to look for new Fresh Stock opportunities. I ended up meeting the team at Okayama Denim, purveyors of high end denim brands exclusively from Japan’s denim capital. Okayama Denim was getting ready to launch its site, and I got to help edit product photos, contribute to logo design, and put some of the finishing touches on the site. Being involved in this process definitely influenced what happened next.

Flash forward a couple of years, and my wife and I were out shopping in Kobe. I told her how much I would like to take Fresh Stock beyond casual consulting and turn my attentions toward product curation. We had come across the Velos Wood Push Pins, and were talking about how simple yet great they were, and suddenly stationery products seemed like the perfect launching point for a web shop. After countless emails and phone calls to a handful of Japanese stationery companies I admired, we created our starting product lineup and find ourselves here today. Fresh Stock could go in all kinds of directions in the future, and we’re excited about the possibilities. But for now, we’re content with our humble beginning, and we hope you enjoy our products and follow us as we continue finding new Japanese products, made with excellence, to share with people around the world.