 Welcome to International Hawaii on Think Tech, where we showcase local import and export companies and the trade industry. I'm your host Cindy Matsuki with the Foreign Trade Zone, and today we're chatting with Jen Kurora of Offroad Express. Hi Jen, thank you so much for joining me. Hi, thank you very much for having me today. I know you're really busy, but so I'm excited to have you on the show. Could you briefly explain what Offroad Express is? Okay, Offroad Express is the agent of a Sagawa Express from Japan. That's the main part of the business. We do shipping overseas to and from Japan, and we also do some local deliveries also. Oh, like you mean Indra Island or just within Oaku? Oh, okay. Yeah, for local deliveries. When did Offroad Express start? Offroad Express started in the late 90s, being as an agent of a Sagawa Express in Japan. When we started Offroad Express, we started from an unaccompanied baggage for Japanese tourists. Oh, interesting. Yeah, in the 90s, Japanese had, you know, they were so exciting to come here in Hawaii, and they buy, they go ABC, you know, they buy everything they want, and they take everything back to the room, and they realize they can't take everything home. So they call, you know, Offroad Express, you know, they want to ship it over instead of they carry everything home. Yeah, we start from there. Yeah. Oh, and what were you doing before that? Like, how did you know that was a need? Oh, okay. I used to work for another company called Yamato Transport. I learned from them. And yeah, they were doing some unaccompanied baggage also. So yeah, we just copy the same kind of service, but, you know, a bit of rigged. Yeah. Oh, nice. And then from there, did Sagawa approach you to be there represented in Hawaii? Oh, yes. Okay. When I was working for Yamato Transport, one manager from Sagawa approached me and, you know, they want me to pick up Sagawa cargo, not Yamato cargo. So, you know, I just made that, you know, new challenge. Okay. Were they doing the same thing or were they just doing regular, like, merchandise shipping? Yeah, we do now regular kind of, you know, e-commerce shipping, like, you know, store to store to like, you know, consumer in Japan. Yes. Yeah, we do those services also. Oh, is it mostly export? Or do you do import too? No, mostly export. Oh, yeah. Interesting. And then you do ocean and air freight? Yes, we do both ocean and air freight. Yes. And then the ocean freight goes direct to Japan. And does it come directly back? Yeah, it has a route right now. Yeah, we go back and forth, you know, direct to Japan, Yokohama. Oh. And Yokohama port. Okay. And who is your target customer? Like, who benefits the most from using off-road express? Right now, because, you know, there is no tourists in Waikiki. So right now, you know, we are doing some of the e-commerce business. That's the main thing, yes. Got it. So you're supporting, like, Hawaii businesses that have e-commerce in Japanese customers. Right. So we can go to their store or maybe their warehouse to pick up and, you know, just consolidate everything and, you know, give it to airline so that, you know, they can do another consolidation. Oh, interesting. Interesting. And do you have, like, is it contract for business or is it just pick up by pick up? No, we have to contract a shipper. You know, we have, first, before we do business with any company, we have to make the company as a known shipper, because we can't take anybody's cargo onto aircraft by, you know, it's regulated by a TSA. So we have to register a shipper first to the TSA system. Then we can, you know, we can forward, we can pick up and we can ship over, especially from Hawaii. There is no cargo airplane. So the TSA regulation is kind of strict. Oh, because you're going to have a commercial passenger airplane. Yeah, that's why, you know, TSA regulation is very tough in Hawaii. Oh, so what does that mean? They're very strict on what you are reporting? Say, you know, if Cindy, you want to ship a cargo, I mean, if you want to ship packages to your friend in Japan, I can't go your place to pick up because you are found as an unknown shipper. Yeah, you know, we, yeah, we can't pick up from anybody, but you know, we only can pick up from a known shipper site. So like a, like ABC store, we can pick up from them. They are known shipper. Okay, and is that just paperwork to become a known shipper? Yeah, we just process that paperwork. And I think TSA, TSA, you know, cross check if this is this company or this person is existing really. And, you know, I don't think they do any kind of background check, but it has to be, it has to be matched with other record, like, you know, DCCA, you know, record keeping. Your check records. And so they just want to make sure that you are a legitimate company. Right, right, right. Got it. Got it. And then you don't ship to any other companies. I mean, any other countries, sorry. Just, we, right now, we only ship to Japan, yes. Okay. Have you had any problems with transporting something with your customers or like any crazy horror stories about shipping gone wrong? No, we are steady. I mean, yeah, we are good. No, that's good. I mean, it's good if you don't have any problems. I mean, that means your system works and then your customer, right, has lined up. Yeah. Okay, good. The unique product we ship is a surfboard. Oh, yeah. It's a big and bulky. And it's so fragile. So I think the surfboard is one of the, it's good market, but it's also very hard market. We have, you know, the packing, packing technique we have, we have to, I think we spend a lot of times, you know, to learn from the damages. Yeah, we pay a lot. And, but right now, we are, the damage ratio is so low. Oh, good. And is that one of the biggest products you're shipping now? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, surfboard is one of the biggest market, I mean, biggest product we ship to Japan. We, I think we ship maybe close to 150 surfboards to Japan every month. Wow. Yeah. When it was busy back then, you know, before COVID, some, yeah, we ship more. But right now, because, you know, the Japanese tourists don't come here to buy it. We just do, you know, the online orders to the soft shop. So yeah, but still, yeah, it's a, it's a big market. Yeah, I would think especially after the Olympics this year, with the surfing. Yeah, the surfboard in Japan is like a maybe double expensive than, you know, what we can get it here. Oh, wow. Yeah, people want to spend freight and maybe duty tax, but yeah, it's cheaper. Wow. But so there are companies that shape and sell surfboards in Japan. That's interesting. Yeah, they do. They do. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And then, like what other kinds of products do you ship from Hawaii, like food products, products or? We do ship some of the food supplements. Oh. And yeah, vitamins are, those are kind of popular. And also, we ship some cosmetics. Oh. Yeah. Those kind of things. Yeah. So, you know, other than surfboard, it comes to small packages. Yeah. But that must be easier. Yeah, easier. Yeah. Okay. Has the pandemic affected your business? I mean, it sounds like it slowed down a little bit. Yeah, it's slowed down. Yes. After, before pandemic, we were concentrating on the business here in Japan, you know, the shipping business. But after, like I said in the beginning, we do some local deliveries. Yeah. That's not affecting by, you know, COVID. Yeah. Wow. But it's interesting that there's still a lot of e-commerce going on between Hawaii and Japan. Yeah, they do. They do. Yes. Okay. But not so much people that want to ship from Japan to Hawaii? Uh, from Japan to Hawaii, they're, yeah, maybe, you know, Hawaii is too, we only have certain amount of people here. You know, there is no, not enough order to make it, you know, continuous business. So, yeah. I think we need more customer to make it, like, you know, regular basis shipments. You know, when we have a one box once a month, like that, you know, we can't get the rate from an airline, you know, that's going to be too expensive. So, when we have a small amount of business from Japan to here, my office in Japan just use like a FedEx account or maybe DHL account, yeah, just to ship over. Because they can't consolidate, they don't have enough cargo to consolidate to make a big shipment. Huh. Yeah. Interesting. Because I feel like there's so much product from Japan that does come to Hawaii. Yeah, especially food. We want to get it here. But the US customs, they have so many small regulations. Like, when you fly to Japan, you try to get, like, ramen or maybe some, you know, chips from Japan. But, you know, sometimes you, those things got confiscated by the customs when you get arrived here because of the ingredients. So, when you're trying to import something, you really have to know what the ingredients are. So, like a donkihote, you know, those, you know, supermarkets, you know, when they have Japanese snacks, the Japanese food that they, I think they study a lot. I remember, I think you couldn't bring meat products back? It's not, you're gonna meet, yeah, you cannot bring the meat product or maybe like meat flavor or meat, like essence. Wow. Yeah, so it's very strict. When on the ingredients, when you said beef or pork, chicken, you know, you can't bring it in. And the customs, they know the Chinese character. Like, we cannot, you know, a long time ago we can't cheat, maybe. Now, you know, they know how to, you know, how to read the Chinese character also. So, yeah, they are very strict about it. Huh, interesting. And so, how did you, how did you shift your business from doing, like, how did you market your business to stay in business during the pandemic when there was no tourists? And there's still no tourists? Yeah, the tourist market is down, but I think some company wants to stay in business even within the pandemic. So, we went out after them to, you know, just to support their activity. That's how we, right now we are, like, okay, our company is like a member of six, but still one member is stay home. Yeah, so we cut down some hours, you know. At the beginning, we cut down to, like, maybe two just working in the beginning of the COVID, but it's getting better and better. So now, only once still, but only once they stay home. Well, that's good. That's good. We are going to take a quick break. This is International Hawaii on Think Tech Hawaii, and my guest today is Jim Kubota of Off-Road Express, and we will be right back. My name is Mark Shlove. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. My program comes on every other Monday, one o'clock, and we talk about a lot of different subjects, all of them law related in some way, either life or practice. And I try to have a diversity of guests that can talk about different topics of interest. So please join us. Think Tech Hawaii Law Across the Sea program every other Monday, one o'clock in the afternoon. Aloha. Hi, welcome back to International Hawaii on Think Tech. Today my guest is Jim Kubota with Off-Road Express, and we are talking about their service to Hawaii, to Japan from Hawaii and back. So I was going to ask, what is the benefit of people using Off-Road Express versus just going with FedEx or another company? Because we have a regular shipment, a regular consolidation. So we can get better air rate, and the customer currents in Japan, we do as a manifest customer currents. So the rate we have compared to FedEx or UPS is much, much cheaper. And when we said Off-Road Express, maybe they don't know about it, but when we said Sagawa, which is what we are agents for, the Sagawa Express, Japanese people, 100% Japanese people know Sagawa Express. Sagawa Express is one of our three major transportation companies in Japan, just like UPS or FedEx in Japan. So yeah, when we call ourselves as a Sagawa, then people know what we do. And you specialize more in air or both, depending? More in the air, air cargo, yes. Okay. Yeah, because I was going to ask, are there ocean carriers that you use that would go direct from Hawaii to Japan or back? Yes, we do use O&E. There are like, it used to be like NYK, KLINE, but they make the big, they combine everything together. And yeah, that's, we use O&E for the big household move. Yeah, when they have like one house, a lot of furniture, a lot of boxes, then we use O&E container to ship over. Okay, yeah, I think they're one of the few, right, that do direct to Hawaii. I think they're, they are the only, I think so, they are the only ship line. So, but from here to Japan, the rate is not too bad, but from Japan to here, I heard it's like a maybe triple time sex, more expensive than, you know, going backwards, so. Why is that? I don't know, maybe it's demands is higher, much higher. So, from Japan to Hawaii, say one container costs like $10,000. From here to Japan, it's like maybe $3,000 instead of $10,000. It's very big difference. It's strange, you know, it's same route, same distance, but they have different rates. Or it's probably cheaper, maybe, because they go to Long Beach, right, for California, and then back to Hawaii. And then that might be cheaper. Do you see any trends in transportation and shipping? Like as far as, are we, I've read articles about how there's been a lot more traffic with shipping and containers. But then I've heard that there's also a lot of backup because of labor issues for port side. Yes, I think every, all the freight charges are coming more expensive after the COVID. I heard that's because, like you said, it's a more less labor, yeah, less locations to open on the operations. Jumping up the price, yes. And demand has gone up too? Yeah, demand is going up too. I think people cannot, you know, especially to Hawaii, people cannot move, you know, because we are on the island. So demand, everything has to be coming in. That's true. But I'm glad, I'm glad Japan still wants to purchase things from Hawaii. Yes, they love Hawaii. That's always a good thing. What kind of logistical challenges is Japan facing that you know of, that you could share with us? Japan facing, like, what do you mean by challenge? Like, I know they're still having challenges with COVID, right? And then what about, how are they managing with their import, export, like their ports and their shipping? Everything is the same as the U.S. You know, they have short staff. Yeah, it's exactly the same. Wow, that's too bad. COVID, COVID changed everything, I think. But Japan is, their vaccination ratio is, I think, getting better and better. So I hope they're coming back to normal soon. I hope so too. I really hope so. What advice would you give to someone who's starting up their business? Like any kind of business, either in trade or... If I try to open up another business, honestly, I won't do it. Too hard. You have to work hardest. And return, yeah, sometimes return is not too great. So yeah. But it's always fun to work hard. So yeah. When people like to work hard, you know, open up with your own business is a good challenge. And you know, you can keep yourself busy all the time. Yeah. I would think it's rewarding. I mean, if you like what you're doing, right? Yeah, I like it. But I won't do it again. Got it. Is there anything like you would, any lessons learned that you would advise somebody if they're starting their own business or just be prepared to work hard? Yeah, prepared to work hard. And just be honest to the customer. You know, when try to, not to rip off, but make, give a lie to the customer, small or big or the bad or good, the lie won't last. So just be honest to the customer and also to the team members or maybe some vendors. You don't have to hide anything. And people can understand the situation. Yeah. And then you lose people right if they find out eventually. Right. Yeah. Last, last random question. What has been your pandemic pastime activity? Have you been doing anything specifically? Or have you just been so busy with work? I don't get I don't get the question. One more time, please. No, like during the pandemic, when people have been staying home, some people have been gardening, some people have been. Oh, my, my, my private life, you mean? Yeah. Okay. I found the hiking habit. You know, on the weekends, I go to trail. Yeah. I like a blue box trail. Like, yeah, those things, you know, I knew there is some nice the hiking courses, but I never tried before. But when I have time now, I can try. It's a good exercise. And the view I saw it was very nice. Good, good. Has it been less crowded? I feel like some of the hikes have been getting more crowded. Yeah, I think so. I think a lot of people find out that the hiking is good. I like it. I like the hiking. Yes. Me too. That's awesome. Thank you so much. We're going to leave it here. Okay. We've been watching International Hawaiian Think Tech, and we've been chatting with Jin Kuroda of Offroad Express. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me and your insights, Jin. Thank you to our viewers for tuning in. I'm Cindy Matsuki. We'll be back in two weeks with another edition of International Hawaii, and we'll see you next time. Thanks.