Shipping in Japan 101: How to ship with Sagawa Express

More and more online store owners from small shops to enterprises, consider entering the Japanese market. But we all know it is not easy. Apart from selling great product, you must have a good understanding in 'shipping'.

For shipments in Japan, one shipping service which every eCommerce sellers should know is Sagawa Express. Today, we will go through Sagawa Express's services details and how to make business contract with Sagawa and apply to Sagawa e-Hiden (e飛伝) web service to create shipping labels for Sagawa easily.

*This blog is a part of a series: Shipping in Japan 101, to help you understand how to ship with Japanese carriers and how to make a business contract with them.

Introduction to Sagawa Express

Sagawa Express is a major transportation company in Japan. Sagawa Express offers comprehensive services to solve businesses' logistics issue, from both domestic and international parcel delivery to one-stop 3PL.

Sagawa Express is delivering about 3 millions parcels per day in Japan through a variety of delivery service to fill a business's need. There is an option to ship regular package, frozen package or chilled package as well as an option to select a delivery date and time.

Here is the shipping service offered by Sagawa Express, widely used by eCommerce sellers in Japan.

1. Hikyaku Express (飛脚宅配便)

A service to send packages quickly anywhere in Japan. The maximum compensation for damages is 300,000 yen.

• Hikyaku Express Standard/Regular Package (飛脚宅配便 陸便) - A service to send packages up to 140 cm (total dimensions of 3 sides) and 30 kg in weight.

2. Hikyaku Cool Express (飛脚クール便)

A service to send packages up to 140 cm (total dimensions of 3 sides) and 30 kg in weight, under temperature control in order to keep your item fresh.
・Chilled parcel (クール冷蔵) - Refrigerated transport under temperature control at 2 ℃ to 10 ℃
・Frozen parcel (クール冷凍)  - Refrigerated transport under temperature control at -18 ℃ or lower for frozen

3. Hikyaku Air Express (飛脚航空便)

A service to send packages to 160 cm (total dimensions of 3 sides) and 30 kg in weight, using air transport, delivery packages within next-day to anywhere in Japan. Package from or to Packages to Okinawa are delivered using Hikyaku Air Express.

Payment Method

Most of the time, Sagawa Express provides three payment method for the shipping. Let's take a look.

• Prepayment (Cash) - Shipping fee is paid in cash by sender.
• Prepayment (Monthly invoice) - Shipping fee is paid by sender. Sender will receive a monthly invoice. This service is for shippers with corporate contract with Sagawa Express.
• Payment on delivery (着払い) - Shipping fee is paid in cash by recipient.
• Cash on delivery (代引き / e-Collect) - Shipping fee is paid in cash, credit card or debit card. by recipient, together with product fee and Cash on Delivery (COD) fee.

4. e-Collect (e-コレクト®)

It's important to know the e-Collect service of Sagawa Express. Unlike other countries, Cash-on-delivery (COD) option is commonly offered in the eCommerce ecosystem in Japan.

e-Collect service is a cash-on-delivery services provided by Sagawa Express. Sagawa Express will collect the purchase price of the shipment on behalf of the sender. However, please note that this service is for shippers with corporate contract with Sagawa Express. So, if you are considering providing this option, continue reading this article to find more how to create a corporate contract with Sagawa Express.

5. Delivery Time Selection Service (時間帯指定サービス)

Additional to cash-on-delivery option, delivery date & time selection service is also widely provided by online shops in Japan. For Hikyaku Express, whether it is cool parcel or regular parcel, shippers can specify the delivery date and time for the parcels.

Shipping with Sagawa Express

Wondering how to start shipping with Sagawa Express for your online shops? Basically, you can do it by hand-writing, but we don't really recommend. As the number of orders grow, that manual task will surely cause you a big confusion.

Creating shipping labels of Sagawa Express using a shipping tool will help you save plenty of time.

So, just how do you start? Learn how to apply for Sagawa Express's client number.

Flow to apply for Sagawa Express's Client Number (顧客コード)

Next, we will jump to step-by-step procedure to get a client number with Sagawa Express and introduce you to Sagawa Express's shipping tool, Sagawa e-Hiden (e飛伝) web service.

1. Apply for Smart Club for business (スマートクラブ for business) service to enjoy a business client's benefit provided by Sagawa Express from this link by clicking at 'Smart Club registration (スマートクラブ 新規登録)' button.
2. Fill the application form to apply for Client number from Sagawa website. In this step, please select to apply as a Smart Club for business member.
3. Sagawa Express's driver will visit you for supporting in Client Number application. It'll took 1-2 weeks until the number is issued.
4. Please wait until you receive a confirmation email of Sagawa Express's client number issuance.
5. You can start prepare for your shipment !

Sagawa e-Hiden (e飛伝) web service

After getting a corporate contract with Sagawa Express, you will have an access to Sagawa e-Hiden (e飛伝) web service and Yu-pack & EMS Shipping label creation web service (ゆうパケット・EMS送り状発行システム)

With Sagawa e-Hiden web service, online sellers can easily create a shipping labels electronically, using laptops, and print it out to make an actual shipment.

If you are not familiar with Japanese, using Sagawa e-Hiden is probably not easy. The good news is that there is Sagawa e-Hiden is not the only option to print a shipping label for Sagawa Express.

How to create shipping labels for Sagawa Express?

If you are managing online shops on an e-commerce platform like Shopify, Magento, Etsy, Amazon, the shipping tool by Sagawa Express is not auto-sync with those platforms, causing a manual task like downloading & uploading CSV file of order details to create shipping labels.

We expect you have no time for that.

Good news ! Using Ship&co is the fastest way to create a shipping label for Sagawa Express, plus Yamato Transport, Japan Post, and other international carriers including FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc.

Ship&co's web application integrated with Sagawa Express API. Coming with user-friendly shipment dashboard, it helps online sellers streamline the process of creating shipping labels by reducing the manual task like copy&paste of the shipping details.  No matter where you are selling - Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, Magento, BASE, ColorMe, eBay, Yahoo! Shopping, or even your own eCommerce websites/platform.

Ship&co is a shipping tool - created by and for online sellers. We understand you have no time for the confused process. That's why we've made the process for creating Sagawa Express's shipping label incredibly easy.

See this quick how-to video or simple go through the below steps:

Step 1 - Access Ship&co's Orders page and click on orders.

Step 2 - Select the parcels details - size, delivery hour, delivery date, quantity, service type, etc. and click the printer button on the bottom-right side.

Step 3 - Now you've got your label created! Once label is created, your order is automatically fulfilled and tracking number is sent to online shops.

Step 4 - Click "Label" button to check shipping label and print it out.

And done !

Easily connect your eCommerce shop with Ship&co to scale up your shipping power

We hope Ship&co will help you get instant access to Sagawa Express shipping power and manage any online shops you have from all-in-one interface. Shipping parcels with Sagawa Express is as easy as it should be !

Ship&co offers a 14-day free trial (without a credit card) so give it a try !

About Ship&co

Ship&co is a global shipping platform designed by and for e-commerce sellers. Created by the team behind Bento&co, who have been selling on Shopify since 2008, Ship&co provides a simple and easy-to-use web dashboard and shipping API. Ship&co helps online sellers ship packages faster by automatically syncing orders and creating shipping labels and invoices in minutes. With Ship&co, you can create shipping labels for FedEx, UPS, DHL, NinjaVan, Yamato, Sagawa, and more, with just two clicks to complete the process and mark your orders as shipped. For more information on Ship&co, visit shipandco.com or reach out to us via hello@shipandco.com !