Handmade item marketplace Anders brings new Japanese-flavored designs every Monday

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Creema provides a handmade item marketplace under the same name. Our readers may recall that the company secured $1 million funding round from KDDI Open Innovation Fund last year, followed by  an iOS app launch in November.

The company officially today launched a new app called Anders in six locations, bringing made-in-Japan handmade items to the global market. The app is available for iOS on AppStore in Japan, the U.S., Singapore, France and Germany, plus Taiwan.

Based on the concept – Long Life Design, HandMade in Japan – Anders introduces new lineups every week from a variety of accessories, fashion items and foods as well as home interiors. Members can buy these items for reduced prices within a week after their initial appearance on the marketplace.

If one introduces friends to Anders, one can earn rewards of up to 6,000 yen (about $50) in value according to how many friends are introduced. Moreover, the friends introduced can also earn rewards of 500 yen in value each. Planned participating designers and brands include Astro NutsJanukaJaren“GaTa” watch smithEnku, and C-Brain.

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What differentiates Anders most from their conventional service is that users can enjoy shopping in English as well as Japanese. According to Creema, each of more than five designers intends to introduce their 10 to 20 new items every Monday as of the time of launch, meaning dozens of new handmade items debuting on the app every week.

Since its teaser site launch on February 23, the company has been accepting pre-registrations from users until today. In a recent conversation with Creema CEO Kotaro Marubayashi, he couldn’t disclose how many users they have acquired to date but shared a ratio of overseas users of around 50% as expected, thereby seeing a good start.

There are many players fiercely competing in this space, including Etsy and Fab in the U.S., Pinkoi in Taiwan, in addition to Tenote and Minne, not to mention Iichi, in Japan. So it will be interesting to see how favorably the concept of handmade items based out of Japan are accepted by the global market.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy