⚠️ For U.S. Customers: Important Update on Customs Fees

August 25, 2025, 1:00 PM JST Update

Important Notice for Our U.S. Customers 🇺🇸

We are temporarily halting all shipments to the United States. This is due to new U.S. tariff rules that have caused confusion and unclear procedures from shipping companies and customs.

We are taking this step to prevent any unexpected costs or issues for you. We apologize for the inconvenience and will resume U.S. shipping as soon as the situation is clear. Thank you for your patience! 🙏

＞＞＞

⚠️ For U.S. Customers: Important Update on Customs Fees

Thank you for your continued support of Heiwa Slipper.

We would like to inform you that the U.S. government has changed its customs rules. Effective August 29, 2025, all packages arriving in the U.S. will be subject to customs duties and fees.

While orders under $800 were previously exempt, from this date forward, customs duties and brokerage fees will be the customer's responsibility, regardless of the order value.

The new customs rules are highly unpredictable and difficult to foresee. However, we have confirmed with DHL in Japan that the changes will be applied starting on August 29, 2025.

Under this new system, we are concerned that even our low-priced products may incur 15-27.5% in customs duties from Japan, plus a high possibility of an additional $20-30 USD in brokerage fees from the international shipping company.

This is a proactive notice based on our experience when the EU began collecting VAT, which caused unexpected additional costs and confusion for customers.

We sincerely wish to deliver our products to you with peace of mind. However, we are concerned that the new duties and fees may cause confusion among U.S. Customs, DHL, and our customers. To avoid causing any inconvenience, we may temporarily suspend shipping to the U.S. until the situation becomes clearer.

Despite these challenges, we will continue to monitor the situation and sincerely hope to offer the charm of our Japanese indoor slippers to our U.S. customers in a way that minimizes price increases and new burdens.

For those who wish to place an order without customs duties and fees:
If you would like to receive your items without these additional charges, we strongly recommend placing your order by 1:00 PM JST on Monday, August 25. This timeframe accounts for the shipping duration from Tokyo to the U.S. before the new rules take effect.

We will continue to put our heart into creating and delivering products that you will love.

Sincerely,
Heiwa Slipper

＞＞＞

 

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How did the slipper become so common in Japan? | What is Heiwa Slipper?

What is Heiwa Slipper?

In the beginning, Japanese slippers

Thank you for visiting our website. We are an online slipper store located in Japan and very excited to introduce you our various collections of the slippers.

But first, let me explain what we call “slipper” in Japan. Most of the time, in Western countries, “slipper” means “a semi-closed type of shoe, consisting of a sole held to the wearer’s foot by a strap running over (or between) the toes or instep (Reference: Wikipedia)”. They are wearable shoes for outside, most of the time, and sometimes inside as well for comfort. On the other hand, in Japan, when we say “slipper”, we think flat, in-house footwear item, and that is the kind we would like to spread to the world.

As you may know, it is our common practice to take our shoes off when we go in the house to keep the floor clean. Then why do we wear slippers in the house? How did the slipper become so common in Japan?

How did the slipper become so common in Japan?

It is said that the origin of slipper firstly appeared in Japan in the beginning of Meiji era (1968-1912), which was the time Japan was opening its country to the world and having more people visited from outside, especially from Western countries. However, those visitors of course walked straight into the houses or hotel rooms without taking their shoes off. Japanese people worried that the floor would eventually get dirty and the tatami would be damaged. Slipper was devised to deal with those problems and to welcome people who came from different cultural background.

 

Our theme is “Return of Japanese Slippers”

Ever since then, slipper has become common/daily use item all over Japan. However, unfortunately, we barely find slippers made in Japan these days. A lot of them are industrially mass-produced in other countries at lower wages, and sold at a cheap price here. Our theme is “Return of Japanese Slippers”.

We believe slipper can be a bridge to the peace (= “Heiwa”)

Here, we will introduce slippers made with the spirits of Japanese hospitality. We would like to also introduce some slippers made in other countries, in which we try our best to achieve the fair-trade upon importing them. “Benefits for all three sides, for the customer, society, and the vendor” is what we are aiming for.

We believe slipper can be a bridge to the peace (= “Heiwa”).

- Heiwa Slipper