Takuhaibin is the Japanese word for a remarkably convenient type of package delivery service. In today’s Japan, all the customer has to do is make a single phone call or place an order online, and the delivery company takes care of the rest, collecting parcels, baggage, ski equipment, electric appliances, and even furniture from a designated address and delivering them speedily to their destination without any delay. Japanese delivery companies offer a wide range of services, including shipping goods that need to be kept frozen or refrigerated. These services have made life in Japan extremely convenient.

No Baggage RequiredThe first takuhaibin services began in 1976. The growth of the industry was helped by the rapid expansion of a network of highways throughout Japan in the 1980s, shrinking the time necessary for delivery and making possible the next-day delivery now taken for granted in most of the country. Delivery companies tied up with the convenience stores that were sprouting up all over Japan at the time. With the convenience stores handling collection services, the handy new style of delivery entered the mainstream of people’s daily lives.

As the industry developed, innovative services developed to meet the needs of users, and people in Japan now enjoy a wide range of convenient services not found anywhere else in the world.

Before the advent of takuhaibin, for example, people traveling to a golf course needed to lug lots of heavy equipment with them. If they traveled by train, they would have to take extra care not to bash or bump into fellow passengers with their bulky gear. Takuhaibin put an end to all that. One quick phone call, and the delivery company will pick up your heavy golf bag from your front door and drop it off at your hotel. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy your trip. And when it’s time to go home, all you need to do is fill out a form and your equipment will be delivered to your doorstep. With this liberation from luggage, Japanese people enjoy many kinds of trips, perhaps stopping off at a hot springs resort after their skiing.

Keeping Things CoolAnother “cool” thing about Japanese delivery services is the ease with which items can be sent frozen or refrigerated. This is ideal if your vacation takes you to the coast and you want to send some seafood home as a gift, for example. A grandmother might use the service to treat her grandchildren to a homemade cake—a single phone call will ensure that the cake is delivered to their door fresh and cool the next day, wherever in the country they happen to live.

People may worry about not being home when their package arrives. But in Japan, customers can request delivery at a specific time, so there is no need to hang around at home all day kicking your heels. Even if you are not at home when delivery is made, the delivery person will leave a slip with a phone number to call to arrange redelivery at a more convenient time. If your schedule changes suddenly, changing the delivery address is straightforward, making it easy divert your parcel to a local convenience store or your place of work.

It is also possible to arrange to pay at the receiving end—a convenience when you have asked someone to send you something but don’t feel comfortable asking them to shoulder the delivery costs, or when a customer wants the company or person receiving the package to cover the shipping fees.

Japanese takuhaibin services continue to develop and evolve. Services recently introduced to make life more convenient than ever include door-to-door repair and grocery shopping for the elderly. People use takuhaibin services to send their heavy shopping home from the department store, to order groceries online, or to place an order from a food catalogue provided by the takuhaibin company itself. Takuhaibin companies will also collect a broken clock or other faulty item from your doorstep and return it as soon as it has been repaired. Takuhaibin is just one of the many unique services not found in other parts of the world that make life in Japan so convenient. (January 2010)