International Bridge: from vintage jeans to parcel shipping

How a founder's fascination with Japan grew into International Bridge, a parcel network built for the hard-to-reach US destinations.

International Bridge grew out of one problem worth solving: getting parcels reliably to the places that are hardest to reach. This is the story of how a young man's fascination with Japan turned into a company built for those lanes.

In our post on celebrating 20 years of IB's Non-Con business, we covered how IB began serving non-continental destinations more than two decades ago. This is the earlier chapter: where the company came from, and why hard-to-reach delivery has been the point from the start.

A founder shaped by Japan

International Bridge starts with its founder, John (Jack) Farley, and an early fascination with Japan. As a young man driving past the Los Angeles airport, he saw it as a doorway to other places. At 19 he moved to Japan, and two years there left a mark he could not shake. The language, the culture, and the pace of the country stayed with him after he came home. Seven months later he went back to visit the friends he had made.

The vintage Levi's trade

In 1989, a commercial route from Los Angeles to Narita with a layover in Hawaii gave Farley his opening. He used those trips to carry back suitcases of used Levi's, which his Japanese friends prized. He found work at a Tokyo trading company that imported new Levi's and Lee jeans. Demand for vintage pairs kept climbing with every trip. Japanese collectors treated vintage denim the way others treat a prized coin collection. Unlike coin collectors, they wore what they bought, carrying a piece of another era with them.

Farley Enterprises Inc. was founded in 1988. By 1996 it was publishing Vintage Partner, a magazine that sourced vintage Levi's, military flight jackets, and sneakers. Demand grew enough that the team created a sourcing guide, 'Wanted in Japan,' to help sellers track down the right pieces.

vintage partner wanted in Japan

The 1997 online auction

In 1997, Farley Enterprises launched an online vintage auction that connected sellers in the US with buyers in Japan. That auction is where IB's e-commerce story begins. For the first time, the business was matching buyers and sellers across an ocean and moving the goods between them. Collectors shopped through the night, and the model worked. To keep every transaction trustworthy, items were routed to Utah for inspection before shipping to Japan, a practice the team called 'Shinrai Shobai,' or trusted business. Running three auctions a week, Farley Enterprises added a $25 flat-rate package service to Japan to handle the shipping.

From Bridge to Japan to International Bridge

In December 2000, Farley founded Bridge to Japan to move small international parcels, working with commercial airlines and last-mile delivery partners. The company was later renamed ParcelPool, and then International Bridge. It became the connective layer between commercial airlines and small-package businesses. The founding idea was simple: small parcels can do a lot to connect people and businesses across distance.

The first non-continental shipment

In 2003, ParcelPool sent its first shipment to Hawaii. That shipment marks the start of IB's non-continental service and the basis for more than two decades of work in these lanes. What began as a way to move denim between the US and Japan had become a way to reach the US destinations that are hardest to serve.

Where IB is today

That idea still runs the company. IB connects e-commerce businesses across the US and beyond, with more than two decades of experience in these hard-to-reach lanes. The thread from 1997 holds: match people who want to buy with people who want to sell, then move the parcel reliably between them. The vintage-auction roots explain the focus, which is dependable delivery to the hard-to-reach destinations IB was built to serve.