How To Signup For honto (the new bk1 merge)

Now that bk1 merged with honto, all of its services have also moved to honto.

I made a post before talking a little about moving from bk1 to honto.
This is a guide for English speakers interested in signing up for honto, but do NOT have a bk1 account previously. If you have a bk1 account, refer to the post earlier.

Note: According to some users (this post and this post), Visa Electron cards do not work on honto. Visa Electron users, please refer to the Where To Buy Japanese Stuff page for other shopping options.

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honto Signup

First, navigate to the home page and click on signup either on the top of the page or the blue button on the right of the page (as indicated in this screenshot):

Once you click on either links, you should see this, where you enter your email address:

Click on green button to confirm. Wait for a confirmation email from them. Once you receive it, click on the confirmation link provided in the email. It should be a long link.

Once you click on the link, you should be brought to this page with your email address you provided earlier in the first line:

I’ve translated and indicated all that you need to enter on that page so enter your information as indicated. You can ignore the bottom parts starting from the honto card number. Click on the green button after you are done.

You would be brought to this confirmation page.

Clicking the green button will confirm and finalize your registration process.

That’s it for registering.

To get to the online store from the home page, click on either the top link or the big blue letters on the left side as indicated in this screenshot.

You can also just use the search bar to find what you are looking for. The search bar works better in Japanese. My advice is to find the title on Amazon.co.jp and then copy and paste the title into the bk1 search bar as plain text. Take out any weird characters that might hinder the search results.

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Shopping Cart & Checkout

Now in order to send your items to your address outside of Japan, you need to first enter your address into your account. To do this, click on マイページ (My Page) on the top right corner of the page where you see the blue “My.” You should be brought to your page with this left side bar:

Click on アドレス帳情報, which means address book.
On the next page, click on the green button for new entry.

This should be your next page. You will see two tabs in blue. Click on 海外 as indicated in the screenshot and you will get English labels for entering your information. (They are English-friendly!)

Orange colored labels indicate required fields. Click on green button after you’re done. You will be brought to a confirmation page. Click on the green button again and you should see the entry in your address book.

Now to the checkout!

Here’s what the shopping cart is basically consisted of:

When you’re ready to check out, click on the green button.

You should be brought to a page to enter your account password. Click on green button to continue. If you forgot your password, you can click on the blue link above the green button.

After continuing, you will be brought to a page where you are forced to enter a Japan postal code/contact phone number. The first line, enter any valid postal code here (use Google if you need help) and click on the blue button. Once it confirms the postal code, the rest of the required fills would be filled out on the click of the blue button. Now the last line is a phone number. I think you can enter anything here and it would get you through. After you’re done here, click the green next button.

I might be missing a step here, but there is a section that asks how you would like the items to be shipped to you. All at once or separately. If you leave it at default, it would be all at once. That option should be 一括発送（予約も同梱）. Pre-ordering will delay your entire order if you choose this option.

You should get this payment/shipping page. I’ve labeled the page as necessary here:

From my experience, I would typically recommend SAL if you want to receive your books within a week or two at an affordable price. SAL always ships to my address in the east coast of the US within 10-14 days. They are quite reliable and the only time that it’s been slow is during the holidays. I would avoid ordering near Christmas. If you’re not in the a hurry for your order, sea mail would be the cheapest, but it would probably take 2-3 months to get there.

After you’re done with that page, click on the green button (again) and you will reach the final confirmation page. Make sure the address on the right side is the correct mailing address. It should be correct if you entered your address to your account as instructed at the start of this guide (it defaults to that address).

The bottom part where it says お気に入り登録(新刊お知らせメール) is asking whether you want to subscribe to the author’s works.

Blue buttons will allow you to change that part of the order.
The final green button will finalize your order.

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For those who are concerned with shipping weight, honto gives you an estimate here. LeBoku also suggested using Stack Stock Books, which seems to be a database for Japanese books, where you can search for the book and it would give you an idea of the book’s weight. No sign up is required. They have an in-site search on the right sidebar that says, “サイト内検索.” Type in the Japanese book name, ISBN, or anything related to the book, and it should show up. I don’t know how accurate the site is, but it seems to be quite reliable according to LeBoku, give or take for packaging material weight.

For first time users, Alekzander’s post can be helpful; it’s a short timeline of the ordering process.

Hope this guide helps. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a post here.