Every year, LFI Tokyo provides a list of school supplies and textbooks to families at the end of the school year.

Some supplies like notebooks or “seyes” paper sheets, high school calculators with exam mode, activity books and novels in French or English are difficult or impossible to find in Japan, especially since the Omeisha bookstore closed. So each of us has set up our own strategy: make the purchases in France (and manage the possible excess luggage fees), have some items sent by the family, or order online via Amazon or Lireka which generates additional costs and requires a proper organization because some books have to be ordered, and not everything is available on the same website or in the same store.

To remedy this, a parent arriving from Korea kindly told us that the French company LDE.fr offers a solution that allows parents to have, with a few clicks, all the materials for the new school year.

The proposal would be as follows: from the lists requested for the middle and high school, LDE creates a site by level and section (e.g. 6e and 6e SIA, 5e…) including all the references requested for supplies, as well as books and manuals. Each family chooses whether or not to take the different items and pays for their order by credit card (in euros). LDE then packs the items in a parcel for each student and sends them to the school for the start of the school year. Each student picks up their parcel at the beginning of the school year. The 30x20x30 packages average 11-15kg in middle school, and 15-18kg in high school. Given the significant weight, we have estimated the price of sending the packages to the families’ home, for a total size of 80 cm and less than 25kg by Japan Post, to be about 1030 JPY.

The prices proposed by LDE aligns with the publishers’ price (blocked in France) for all textbooks and books and to the prices found in shops/online in France (see estimate for 6e or seconde as an example below).

LDE also offers digital licenses for textbooks provided by the school. If the school can prove that it has purchased the paper version of the textbook, the price is approximately 3.50 EUR per textbook (i.e. a total cost excluding VAT of approximately 12 EUR in 6e; and 30 EUR in Seconde for example). The digital licenses are regularly requested by secondary school families because it considerably reduces the weight of their school bags and avoids purchasing duplicate textbooks provided by the lycée, a choice made by some families. The simplest way would be for all students to have access to them and for the cost to be included in the school fees, and this is what the FLTs wish to negotiate.

In order to negotiate air delivery of packages and no additional shipping/clearance fees, we would need to know how many families/students would be interested in this service? Therefore, we thank you in advance for completing the survey below to measure your  interest.

If you are leaving Japan this summer, your response is still welcome (answering as if you were staying).