2025/12/1	Pre-Orders and In-Stock Items Can Now Be Combined! Thank you for using Hobby Search. We are pleased to announce that we have expanded the order modification feature to improve customer convenience. With this update, managing orders that include both pre-order items and in-stock items is now more flexible. Main Changes - Pre-order items and in-stock items can now be combined into a single order Previously, in-stock items could not be added to an existing combined pre-order. With this improvement, they can now be included within the same order. - In-stock items can now be reorganized on a per-item basis You can now move individual in-stock items to a separate order, allowing for more detailed and flexible adjustments. - Extended period for changing order information and reorganizing in-stock items Until all items in the order are secured, you may:  - Change the delivery address  - Change the payment method  - Reorganize your order These options offer greater flexibility when managing your purchases. We will continue working to improve our services to ensure an even more comfortable shopping experience. Thank you for your continued support of Hobby Search.
2025/11/27	Dear Customers, Thank you for shopping with us. We are writing to inform you about an important change to the Registered Air shipping method provided by Japan Post. Japan Post will terminate the Registered Air service at the end of 2025. Consequently, our store will discontinue support for this shipping option at 8:00 AM on December 16, 2025 (hereafter referred to as the "Deadline"). From the Deadline onward, this option will no longer be selectable on the Order Form or via My Page. Additionally, any existing orders for which payment has not been completed by the Deadline will automatically be switched to a different shipping option. We strongly recommend that customers with pre-orders scheduled for release in mid-December, late December, or later access My Page in advance and change their shipping method to an option other than Registered Air. Automatic Switching to ECMS If you do not change the shipping method yourself, or if your order meets any of the following conditions, we will automatically switch your shipping method to ECMS:   • Items are not in stock or secured by the Deadline.   • Items are in stock or secured, but the charge has not been made by the Deadline.   • The charge has been made but the package could not be shipped by Dec 29 (our final business day of 2025). Important Notes   • Regarding Shipping Cost Changes: Please note that switching to ECMS may result in higher shipping costs. In such cases, your total billed amount will be adjusted accordingly.   • If You Do Not Wish to Switch to ECMS: If you do not agree to the switch to ECMS (and the potential increase in shipping costs), please contact our Customer Support by Dec 8 to discuss your options.   • If ECMS is Unavailable in Your Region: If ECMS services are not available or suspended for your country or region, we will switch your shipping method to another available shipping option supported by our store. While this situation is due to the service provider's decision and is beyond our control, we deeply regret that we must discontinue the Registered Air option. We remain committed to improving our services to serve you better, such as by introducing alternative shipping methods. We appreciate your understanding and your continued patronage. Note #1. All dates and times mentioned in this notice are based on Japan Standard Time (JST). Note #2. For credit card users. A preauthorization hold on funds, which comes to stand when placing order, is not a charge. Note #3. The discontinuation includes the Registered SAL shipping option. For orders with this shipping option, the treatment is the same as with Registered Air: We will ship the order via ECMS if possible; otherwise, it will be sent using another option such as EMS.
2025/11/20	We are pleased to announce that Japan Post has resumed acceptance of mail to Canada. As of November 14, 2025, we have begun shipping orders that were previously on hold. Please, however, note that local backlogs within Canada's postal network may still cause further transit delays after the parcel leaves Japan. We kindly recommend checking your online tracking information regularly and allowing extra time for your order to arrive. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and deeply appreciate your understanding and continued support.
2025/11/17	Amendment of Terms And Conditions. Starting December 1, 2025, we will expand the order rearrangement feature to allow combining pre-order items with already released items. In line with this update, some of our terms and conditions will be revised effective December 1, 2025. The revisions are as follows: Precautions of use  - (About ordering process)  - (Shipping methods, cost and handling fee etc.)  - (Combined shipment / Order Recombination) Product Sales  - Article 7: Reservation of product  - Article 8: Combined shipment and Order Recombination Date of amendment From December 1st, 2025
2025/11/6	We're happy to announce that ECMS is now available as a shipping option for customers in Europe and New Zealand! The following countries are now supported: New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Netherlands. Simply select ECMS at checkout and enjoy smooth international shipping to these destinations. Thank you very much for shopping with Hobby Search.
2025/10/30	Thank you for your continued support of Hobby Search. We are pleased to announce the renewal and significant upgrade of our chatbot service, as part of our ongoing efforts to improve your experience. The renewed chatbot is designed to be more helpful and is available to assist you on the following pages: # For PC - Website Top Page - FAQ - Contact Form - My Page - Order Form - For First-time Customers # For Smartphone - FAQ - Contact Form - For First-time Customers The renewed chatbot has these key features. 1. High-Accuracy Answers with Advanced Generative AI Powered by powerful generative AI, the renewed chatbot provides responses based on carefully curated information sources. This ensures higher answer accuracy and delivers reliable information swiftly. 2. Covers a Wide Range of Topics The renewed chatbot can answer various questions regarding our site and services, such as:"What are the shipping methods?" "How do I cancel an order?" "How do I register for a membership?" While the renewed chatbot is available 24/7, some complex or specific inquiries may require human assistance. In such cases, please feel free to contact our Customer Support team directly via the Contact Form as usual. Our staff will be happy to assist you. We are committed to enhancing your convenience through this renewal of our chatbot service. We look forward to continuing to serve you. Sincerely, The Hobby Search Customer Support Team
2025/10/27	Dear Valued Customers, We're pleased to update our U.S. customers on the ongoing restoration of shipping options. ECMS has now been re-enabled and is available again as a delivery method when placing orders through our store. Please note that, as with DHL shipments, duties and a customs handling fee will be applied to all parcels sent via ECMS. These fees will be collected together with your order payment. For customers with orders currently on hold and addressed to the U.S., we will contact you by email to let you know that ECMS is available. From there, you may choose to switch your shipping method to ECMS, or, if you prefer, you can make the change yourself by visiting your "My Account" page > "Check Paused Order." If you already have an order with us set to ECMS, we will send you a payment request to cover the duties and handling fee after the service has been re-enabled. These emails will be sent out sequentially, so it may take some time before you receive yours. We are very happy to have ECMS back as a shipping option. At the same time, please note that we are still working to restore additional shipping methods and are also considering new delivery options to provide you with more flexibility and convenience in the future. Should you have any questions or require assistance, our customer support team is ready to ensure your experience is as smooth as possible. We appreciate your trust in us and are committed to providing the best possible experience.
2025/10/7	Dear Valued Customers, To our customers in the United States, thank you very much for your continued patience while we work to restore shipping options on our site. We are pleased to inform you that DHL will be re-enabled on October 14th and will once again be available as a delivery method when placing orders through our store. Please note that, in accordance with US regulations on international parcels, duties and a customs handling fee will now be applied to each shipment sent via DHL. These fees will be collected together with your order payment, and you will not be charged any additional fees after the shipment is sent. For customers with orders currently on hold and addressed to the U.S., we will contact you by email once DHL becomes available. From there, you may choose to switch your shipping method to DHL, or, if you prefer, you can make the change yourself by visiting your "My Account" page > "Check Paused Order." If you already have an order with us set to DHL, we will send you a payment request to cover the duties and handling fee after the service is re-enabled. These emails will be sent out sequentially, so it may take some time before you receive yours. At present, DHL will be the first shipping method to return. However, we are actively working to restore additional options and kindly ask for your continued patience and understanding in the meantime. Should you have any questions or require assistance, our customer support team is ready to ensure your experience is as smooth as possible. We greatly appreciate your support and look forward to serving you.
2025/10/1	Dear Customers, Due to a national strike announced by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) in response to the government’s Canada Post transformation plan, Japan Post has temporarily suspended all shipping operations to Canada. Unfortunately, this disruption also affects ECMS shipments, as they rely on Canada Post for the final delivery. At this time, we can only offer DHL as a shipping option for orders to Canada. If you wish, we can assist you in switching your order to DHL for immediate processing. Alternatively, you may choose to keep your order on hold until Japan Post resumes shipments. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and greatly appreciate your understanding and patience during this period.
2025/9/4	Due to system maintenance, the Hobby Search website will be unavailable on the 7th Sep 2025. (Downtime: 7/9/2025 9:00 - 12:00 GMT +9) We apologize for your inconvenience, and your understanding is greatly appreciated.
2025/8/26	Due to the elimination of the de minimis treatment, new guidelines announced on August 15 (JST or Japan Standard Time) make the specific procedures remain unclear to carriers and postal operators worldwide. As a result, starting August 27 (JST), Japan Post post will temporarily suspend acceptance of mail items destined for the United States in line with the measures adopted by other postal operators worldwide. We therefore have decided to hold shipping orders until further update from Japan Post. All affected shipping methods are as follows: * EMS * Air Parcel * Surface Parcel * Registered Air * Air Small Packet * Surface Small Packet You can continue placing new orders as usual and we will securely hold your orders until these shipping methods become available again, or an alternative shipping method becomes available. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available, but if you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our Customer Support Center. We would greatly appreciate your understanding and patience.
2025/8/8	Dear Valued Customers, Please be advised that Hobby Search will suspend shipping operations on August 11th, 14th, 15th, and on all Sundays. (All JST or Japan Standard Time.) As a result, orders placed during the above dates will be shipped promptly once operations resume. We sincerely appreciate your understanding.
2025/7/11	Dear Valued Customers, We would like to inform you that a system issue has been affecting our email delivery since July 9th, 2025. As a result, it has come to our attention that certain automated emails, such as order confirmation and shipping notification emails were not sent correctly. Regarding payment request emails that were not delivered since July 9th, we kindly ask that you check your account page and proceed with the payment process. My Page: https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/mypage/ We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you did not receive any emails from our store during or after the above period, please contact our customer support at [email protected]. We will review your request and respond accordingly. We appreciate your understanding and continued support.
2025/7/4	Thank you for always using Hobby Search. We've recently received reports that emails sent from us are not reaching Microsoft-related email addresses (e.g., @outlook.com, @outlook.jp, @hotmail.com, @live.com). While we are investigating the cause, it's proving difficult to resolve the issue quickly. Therefore, we kindly ask customers using these email addresses to take the following actions: * For existing account holders: Please change your registered email address to one from another provider (such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or mobile carrier emails) via the "User Registry Info" section on My Page. * For customers creating new accounts or using re-order emails: Please register an email address from another provider. * When contacting us, please use an email address from another provider whenever possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and greatly appreciate your cooperation.
2025/7/4	Thank you for using Hobby Search. We would like to inform you that we will be performing network equipment replacement work as outlined below. During this maintenance, access to our website may be temporarily unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and sincerely appreciate your understanding and cooperation. * Scheduled Date: Sunday, July 6, 2025 * Downtime Period: 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (JST) Please note that the actual downtime may vary depending on the progress of the work. We greatly appreciate your continued support of Hobby Search.
2025/6/26	To our valued customers, Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, we regret to inform you that shipments to Israel and surrounding countries including Iraq, Iran, Jordan, and Lebanon have been temporarily suspended. At this time, we do not have a confirmed timeline for when shipping services to these regions will resume. Any orders shipping to the affected countries will be put on hold until further notice. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding during this time. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your orders, please feel free to contact our customer support team at: [email protected] Thank you for your continued support.
2025/6/5	Dear Valued Customers, Thank you for your continued support of Hobby Search. We would like to inform you that, as part of our efforts to improve customer convenience, we will be making partial changes to our business operations starting in June 2025. Specifically, we will begin operating on Saturdays in addition to our regular business days. - Business Days Previous Schedule: Monday to Friday, and the first and last Saturday of each month *Excluding Sundays, national holidays, and national holidays New Schedule (from June 2025): Monday to Friday, and every Saturday (shipping operations only) *Please note that on Saturdays, we will only process shipments and customer support will generally not be available. *Sundays and national holidays remain non-business days. We hope this change will help us deliver products more promptly, and we appreciate your understanding. In addition, on June 2, 2025, we implemented several updates to the functionality and design of our website. - Main Updates •Adjusted the size of product thumbnails and changed the number of items displayed per row:   •Top page / Ranking (PC): 5 columns -> 7 columns   •Top page / Ranking (Smartphone): 2 columns -> 3 columns   •Product listings (PC): 4 columns -> 6 columns   •Product listings (Smartphone): 2 columns -> 3 columns •Updated the design of the "See Pre-orders / New Releases / Restocks" button •Adjusted the spacing between sections on each top page •Fixed an issue where searches containing "&" or "#" did not function correctly •Fixed an issue where product images were not displaying in the user-submitted photos/comments section If you encounter any issues or have feedback, please feel free to contact our customer support team at [email protected]. We will continue to improve our services to provide better experience for our customers. Thank you for your continued support of Hobby Search.
2025/5/13	Due to system maintenance, the Hobby Search website will be unavailable on the 18th May 2025. (Downtime: 18/5/2025 12:30 - 17:00 GMT +9) We apologize for your inconvenience, and your understanding is greatly appreciated.
2025/4/28	Dear Customers, Due to the current uncertainty surrounding international shipping and customs, we have made the decision to temporarily suspend the use of DHL and ECMS for shipments to the United States, starting April 29th, 2025. At this time, we have not set a specific date for when we will resume offering these shipping methods, but we will continue to monitor the situation closely. This decision comes as private couriers, such as DHL and ECMS, appear to be more immediately impacted by financial and regulatory pressures, which could affect both shipping timelines and cost reliability. In contrast, Japan Post remains relatively stable and continues to offer consistent, affordable service to the U.S., which is why we are prioritizing it during this period. Japan Post shipments to the U.S. will continue as normal. For Customers with Existing Orders Affected by This Suspension (Using DHL or ECMS): Please note that we will not be contacting you individually regarding affected orders. We kindly ask you to visit the "Check Paused Order" section (or similarly named section) in your My Page account. From there, you will be able to take one of the following actions: ･ Change Shipping Method: Request to change your shipping method to an available Japan Post option (such as EMS). ･ Keep your order on Hold: Choose not to change the shipping method and wait until DHL or ECMS services are reinstated on our store. We truly appreciate your understanding and patience as we navigate these evolving circumstances. Thank you for your continued support and trust.
2025/4/24	To Our Customers in Nebraska We’d like to inform you that starting May 1st, Hobby Search will begin collecting sales tax on all orders shipped to addresses in Nebraska. This update is part of our ongoing efforts to comply with local tax regulations as required by law. It’s important to note that this change is different from the U.S. tariff revisions that will go into effect in May 2025. You can find more details here: https://www.1999.co.jp/tax_collection_e.html We appreciate your understanding and continued support. If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]
2025/4/23	Hobby Search will be closed for the Golden Week holidays from May 3rd to May 6th. Orders and inquiries received during this period will be processed starting on the next business day after the holidays. Due to the holiday closure, there may be delays in shipping and response times. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and sincerely appreciate your understanding and patience.
2025/4/1	Dear Valued Customers, Thank you for your continued support of Hobby Search. We are reaching out to inform our customers in Colorado and Texas that, effective April 7th, we will officially begin charging sales tax for orders placed from these two states. [For more details] https://www.1999.co.jp/tax_collection_e.html?srsltid=AfmBOoojsokAXTPZnGOtEIAK43_HcRkfqSyTxHU851F2ApgtWuW8iUrG * Please note that this change is unrelated to the recent tariffs introduced by the USA. As a leading global hobby store, we are fully committed to complying with all applicable tax laws. We greatly appreciate your understanding and cooperation regarding this new sales tax collection. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to our customer service team at customer support team
2025/3/7	We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your continued support of Hobby Search. We are informing you that, due to business expansion, our head office will be relocating to the address below. With this move, all of our employees will renew their commitment and work even harder to provide you with better and more fulfilling services. [New Address] 2F Hongo Fuji Building 4-9-22 Hongo Bunkyo Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan [Relocation schedule (dates stated in Japan time GMT+9)] March 14th - 15th, 2025 During this period, our website will be temporarily unavailable. Please note that on March 14th (Friday), we will be open as usual. However, we will not be able to process shipments or respond to email inquiries. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in advance.