The Path to E-Commerce Success in Japan Webinar (Jan 20th, 2022)
On January 20th, 2022, Business Sweden, Business Finland, and Nordic Innovation House Tokyo jointly held a webinar to share the key findings of the newly published Japanese E-commerce Retail Guidebook.
After the opening remarks by Laura Kopilow, Advisor at Business Finland Tokyo, we had Kasper Thim and Joakim Larsson, Consultants from Business Sweden to share key findings of the guidebook. We then welcomed Mr. Makoto Fukai, President of BabyBjorn K.K. to share their experiences, followed by an active Q&A session.
Kasper first explained how the pandemic has been accelerating the e-commerce market in Japan to all age segments among a large variety of goods. Joakim shared the pros and cons of major e-commerce platforms in Japan. In addition, he touched on some Nordic-specific platforms that already have plenty customers fond of the Nordic brands and how newly entering brands may benefit from joining the platforms.
Mr. Fukai shared BabyBjorn’s experience on how to increase the number of visitors on different platforms, conversion rates, and pricing. He explained how BabyBjorn localized the structure and contents of the website to meet the demands of Japanese customers. He also explained how pricing can determine your position in the market by giving the example of their experience with babies’ bouncing chairs. Our sincere gratitude goes to Mr. Fukai for an informative presentation.
Some of the questions we received during the Q&A session were about local e-commerce platforms (other than the Big 3: Amazon, Rakuten, Yahoo), the timing of trademark registration, and the possibility for a D2C model.
Recommended local platforms will depend on the industry; for example, ZOZOTOWN for fashion, and @cosme for makeup and beauty products. As for trademark registration, although entering the E-commerce market does not require a registered trademark, filing trademarks prior to starting the business is highly recommended. This is to avoid any conflicts with third parties or even with your partner (Japan follows the first-file policy). D2C is an option and popular among larger brands (H&M, for example), but if you are still an unknown brand in the market and your site is not properly localized, customers may not have the best user experience.
We also received specific questions for Mr. Fukai. When asked about how they conduct sales on Amazon and Rakuten, he explained that they sell B2B to Amazon and Rakuten. Their wholesales team will periodically revise content based on reports provided by the platforms. Regarding customer support in Japanese e-commerce, he explained that BabyBjron has one customer support team handling both direct and B2B sales. The main inquiries they receive are issues on size and delivery terms. Business Sweden added on that they highly recommend having a strong customer support team or outsourcing partner since poor customer support can easily lead to a bad reputation in Japan.
Closing remarks were made by Haruki Tsuji, Project Manager at Business Sweden Tokyo.
To learn more about the key findings, please watch the whole recording below.
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Nordic Innovation House Tokyo is a community platform accelerating high-quality Nordic startups, scale-ups, and growth companies to Japan. Via our strong community and network, we connect Nordic companies into the right ecosystem stakeholders 🗼
ノルディックイノベーションハウス東京は、北欧５カ国のスタートアップ、スケールアップ、成長企業の日本進出を支援するコミュニティプラットフォームです。強力なコミュニティとネットワークを生かして、北欧企業と日本のステークホルダーを繋いでいきます。
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