Updated: July 7, 2005



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Localization to Japanese online market

As the characteristics of Japanese people is considerably different from that of western people and it strongly influence their buying attitude, their preference of merchandise, the taste of design they prefer and their response to a marketing promotion, the marketing to penetrate the Japanese market should be adapted to it. Followings are the points to be localized for the online marketing strategy to penetrate the Japanese market:
  1. Knowledge about the Japanese characteristics and the market situation:
    For the most appropriate and effective marketing strategy, the marketer should has a thorough knowledge of purpose or motive fo buy a merchandise, buying attitude, preference of merchandise, design taste, and response to a marketing promotion of Japanese shoppers in addition to the market situation such as market price, competitors, quickly changing situation of circulation systems etc., and should watch current market trend all the time.
  1. Language:
    Every explanation in the propositional materials should be translated in Japanese. It is often misunderstood that many of Japanese people can speak English. However, actually the people who can speak English are only the people who are engaging in foreign related business and the people who have enough English skill to understand all of the description in foreign web sites and successfully buy from them are only far less than 1 percent of whole Japanese population.
    Furthermore, as the currently increasing Japanese online population means the expansion of shoppers with limited or non-existent knowledge of English, the description written in Japanese is essential to invite them.
  1. Page design and contents:
    Shop design should be localized for Japanese people to become friendly.
    As Japanese people are not familiar with foreign name value, the courteous information about the shop and its merchandise will help Japanese shoppers to understand more about these and feel reassured buying the merchandise.
  1. Mobile phone availability: Japan is No.1 mobile phone advanced country and it is forecasted that mobile internet shoppers will account for higher percentage among increasing internet population.
    It was reported that internet connection contracts from mobile phones have reached to 31.4 million (about 1/4 of the whole Japanese population) as of the end of February, 2001.
    Past record shows that it took more than 1 year to pass 10 million mark, and after that, 5 months to pass 20 million and 4 months to pass 30 million accelerating its growth.
    Therefore, the shop design should be fit for the small display of mobile internet equipment and mobile phone shoppers'instant shopping behavior.

  1. Shopping support by native speakers:
    As Japanese people tend to require other's opinion to be confident when they decide something. On-site customer service by Japanese native speaker in the manner of "ask me anything, anytime" is very effective for shoppers when they decide to buy making them to be confident of their decision.
  1. Order confirmation:
    When any order is made by a shopper, it is very important, especially for foreign shops, to send back a order confirmation e-mail in Japanese within a day. It is recommended that it includes the forecasted arrival date to the shopper.
  1. After-sales care:
    After-sales follow-up by Japanese native speaker is essential to lead shoppers to repeated shopping. Courteous response to shopper's claiming defect will create shop's confidence and reliability for customers and sometimes it turns the claiming shopper to a regular customer.
  1. After-sales promotion:
    After-sales promotion such as direct e-mails for special sales or bargain sales information, or the invitations to various events etc. in Japanese language will keep shoppers as shop's regular customers.
  1. Other offline advertisement:
    As search engines are less popular than the U.S. and about 80% of Japanese online visitor know the URL they want to visit by various off-line medium such as news story or advertisement on newspapers or magazines, newspaper insertions. Billboard advertisement are very effective in Japan. Diligent work on these medium will often creates popular topics among many communities.
  1. Customer database:
    Well organized customer database should be prepared. This is very useful to analyze customers' buying behavior and to send regular sales promotion e-mails.
  1. Holding of sales events:
    Holding various events such as a non-commercial exhibition or a lecture class and various sales campaign program such as special sale with a particular title, bargain sale and garage sale, etc. are effective to call customers giving more opportunities for customers to visit the website.
  1. Brand image creation:
    Creation of higher image on a brand or a shop will be relatively easy in Japanese society especially for imported goods when diligent efforts of the above is performed according to appropriate marketing strategy and, once a high image is established, the success will be promised.