There must be better shipping options available in someway. There are vendors on Ebay in China/HK/Singapore that can ship US$1 items, including batteries, their Ebay and Paypal commissions and free shipping[1]. I have no idea how they do it, but they do.
You could probably shave off some shipping costs by putting all of your packages into one crate from Japan to one of these locales and tranship from there.
You could probably shave off some shipping costs by putting all of your packages into one crate from Japan to one of these locales and tranship from there.
[1] one example: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1x-White-1LED-Kong-Frog-Strobe-Rear-F...
Edit: Part of the allure is receiving the candy direct from JP, but you could pull an Apple and print: "Packaged in _____ Japan".