Why should you care about selling on Amazon Japan?

3 Myths and 4 truths about Amazon Japan

When it comes to ecommerce and Amazon selling, everyone knows that the most important thing is selecting a profitable product to sell.

Well before even selecting the product, most sellers overlook the fact that they need to select the right marketplace to sell in.  

In fact, Japan is the 4th biggest Amazon marketplace in the world and still almost nobody is talking about it.

Here are some additional facts about Japan

• Amazon.co.jp is the #1 ecommerce site in Japan with revenue of US$13 billion in 2021
• 93 million online shoppers in Japan with an Ecommerce penetration rate of 74% 
• Ecommerce is forecast to grow at a yearly rate of 6% in Japan
• Japan has a population of 126 million (2021) which is DOUBLE the population of the UK
• Japan has the 4rd largest GDP in the world

But one key thing people overlook is this…

There’s far less competition, unsophisticated, weaker competition in Amazon Japan. 

In terms of absolute numbers, Japan has far fewer sellers than other major marketplaces.  In fact it was ranked #8 in number of sellers behind smaller marketplaces like Italy, France, and Spain.  

Moreover the competition is a lot less sophisticated in Japan than other countries.  

For example some foreign sellers don’t even bother to translate their listings from English to Japanese.  They even entered English into the description and in the backend.  They’re doing NOTHING to win over the Japanese customer so the bar is set really low in Japan when you have these lazy competitors.

Take for example this is the listing that has the Bestseller badge for “Thick Yoga Mat” in Japan.  

It only has 3.9 stars and 429 reviews.  

Note that the seller didn’t even bother translating the infographics into Japanese (they are left in English!)

You don’t need to be the best seller in the world to compete and WIN against weak competition like this.  

In addition, Japan has tremendous supply chain advantages

As the world keeps changing and we are hit with black swan events like the Suez Canal crisis and pirates firing at container ships which are driving up shipping container costs 2x-3x and adding weeks to shipping times, Japan enjoys a tremendous advantage because it is China’s neighbor.

You are going close to the source and you will save a ton of MONEY and TIME on shipping. 

In fact it only takes 7-10 days for a product to ship from China to Japan versus 30-45 days (or more) from China to the US.  

But at the same time it can be intimidating to sell into Japan.  

I’d like to debunk some myths about selling in Japan

MYTH 1 – You have to know Japanese to sell in Japan

FALSE – You can sell in Japan without knowing Japanese (I’m a case in point) 

Recently I was talking with Ecommerce veteran and host of the AM/PM Podcast Kevin King about selling on Amazon Japan.  

Then something interesting came up.

Kevin King asked me how do you get started selling on Amazon Japan?  

I said first you need to figure out your Product Market Fit for Japan.  You need to do product and keyword research.

Kevin said “I don’t read Japanese. How do I do that?”  

I told him I don’t really know Japanese either and I did it.  

So I told him 

– Which tools to use

– Where to look

– How to make sense of Japanese keywords if you don’t know the language

– So you can launch your product in Japan with less risk and more confidence

He was blown away – he didn’t know you could do that for Japan if you don’t know Japanese.  

And we did a training where we show you exactly how to do this.  – https://youtu.be/rBp9bwfn4WA

MYTH 2 – You need a Japanese company to sell in Japan

FALSE – You do not need a Japanese company.  In fact you need a what we call an ACP (learn more here) 

MYTH 3 – You need to register for JTC (Japan VAT equivalent)

FALSE – when you first start selling in Japan you can sell without getting a JTC number – save this for later until you cover a certain sales threshold.

In fact if you are already selling on Amazon US or Amazon UK, Germany or other marketplaces you have many advantages selling into Japan.

ADVANTAGE 1 – REVIEWS 

If you already have a seasoned listing in Amazon US or Amazon’s EU marketplaces, you can carry over the listing and the reviews.  

This means if your SKU has 700 reviews on Amazon.com then you can essentially launch on Amazon JP with 700 reviews.  

And with fewer competition the average review threshold in Japan will be much lower than in other marketplaces.  

This means that you will enjoy higher conversion rates as well with your existing reviews launching into Japan.

ADVANTAGE 2 – Amazon Seller Central in Japan is in ENGLISH

If you are already familiar with Amazon US Seller Central then you will feel right at home in Japan as the menu and navigation is virtually the same. 

ADVANTAGE 3 – PPC costs in Japan are much lower than US or EU.

According to a recent case study by PPC Ninja, average PPC costs in Japan are as low as $0.29 per click which is nearly unheard of in other Amazon marketplaces.  

ADVANTAGE 4 Product Research tools are available for Japan

You can do product and keyword research tools with your exiting tools such as Helium 10, Jungle Scout, and Data Dive, all of whom support Amazon Japan.

Moreover, even Pickfu now supports Japan so you can do additional market research using familiar tools.

All in all these are the reasons why Japan should be on your Amazon Selling Radar in 2024.

If you’d like to accelerate your selling into Amazon Japan, I would like to invite you to a 3 day in-person event in Okinawa Japan from Apr 8-10.  

You will learn the exact roadmap on how to sell up to $965k on Amazon Japan in 2024: https://7figuresellerjapanmastermind.com/

Hope to see you soon,

Gary 

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