Amazon sellers, it’s time to expand your e-commerce empire overseas! Join Todd Welch and Amazon Japan expert Gary Huang as they reveal the secrets to successfully selling on Amazon Japan, the fastest-growing international market.
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Why Amazon Japan Should Be Your Next Big Move
Gary Huang dives deep into why Amazon Japan is a goldmine for sellers. With efficient logistics, low competition, and a thriving marketplace, Japan offers incredible potential for increased profits and expansion opportunities.
The Six Bridges to Successfully Selling in Japan
Gary’s proven framework—the Six Bridges to Selling in Japan—helps sellers navigate and conquer the Japanese market:
- Bridge 1: Product Market Fit
- Research and validate product demand using Amazon’s Product Opportunity Explorer and market analytics tools like Helium10, Jungle Scout, and DataDive.
- Leverage YouTube and Amazon Japan listings to visually understand the local market’s needs.
- Bridge 2: Localization and Japanification
- Optimize your product listings and visuals specifically for the Japanese consumer.
- Understand unique cultural preferences and buyer behavior, such as Japanese cosmetic tastes and seasonal product trends.
- Bridge 3: Import Compliance
- Navigate Japanese import regulations and compliance requirements, especially for supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, and food-contact plastic products.
- Utilize an Attorney for Customs Procedures (ACP) like YUNIGE to handle import logistics smoothly.
- Bridge 4: Shipping and Logistics
- Benefit from cheaper and faster shipping from China and other Asian countries to Japan.
- Explore tariff-free or reduced tariff opportunities from countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and India.
- Bridge 5: Launch Strategy and Reviews
- Leverage Amazon’s Global Review Program to transfer your existing product reviews to Japan, significantly boosting consumer trust from day one.
- Bridge 6: Optimized Marketing and PPC
- Take advantage of lower PPC advertising costs compared to North America.
- Use effective external social media platforms such as LINE, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to drive external traffic.
Tools, Resources, and Recommendations Mentioned in This Episode
Here’s an extensive list of helpful resources and tools Gary recommended for successfully launching your products on Amazon Japan:
- Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer (in Amazon Seller Central)
- Helium10 – Amazon keyword research and analytics tool
- Jungle Scout – Market analysis and product research software
- DataDive – Competitor research tool
- YouTube – For visual market research on Japanese consumer trends
- YLK Translation Services (led by Jana Krekic) – Professional, SEO-optimized Amazon listing translations
- YUNIGE – Osaka-based import compliance specialists and Attorney for Customs Procedures (ACP)
- Social Media Platforms for Japan Marketing
- LINE – Japan’s leading messaging app with integrated marketing capabilities
- Twitter (X) – Widely used for consumer engagement and promotions
- Instagram – Popular with Japanese youth for visually-driven products
- YouTube – Great for demonstrating product usage and cultural research
- Seven Figure Seller Japan Scorecard – Free tool to evaluate your product’s potential for the Japanese market (Take the Japan Scorecard)
- Gary Huang’s Personal Contact Information
- Email: gary@8020sourcing.com
- Website: 8020 Sourcing
- Seven Figure Seller Summit – An award-winning online conference for advanced Amazon strategies (7 Figure Seller Summit)
In Conclusion
Selling on Amazon Japan might seem challenging due to language barriers, compliance hurdles, and cultural differences. However, by adopting Gary Huang’s expert advice and practical insights, you can confidently enter this less competitive, profitable marketplace. Start planning your Japan expansion today and leverage the powerful frameworks and resources discussed in this episode to take your Amazon business to new heights.
Transcript
[00:00:00:00 – 00:00:32:15] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
The same time it was about 2007, 2008, I wanted to go multi channel and then Amazon at that time was offering, um, third party sellers to, to sell onto the platform. So I did start selling on Amazon, but they did not have FBA yet. So that didn’t exist. So I was literally just like, Um, literally picking and packing.
And then I hired like a part time high school student and she would come in after school. She would help like, you know, package up the shoes and, you know, put the shipping labels. We had like a thermal printer. Uh, those were kind of like the good old days, like 2005 to 2008. So that’s how I got started in e commerce.
[00:00:32:15 – 00:00:53:02] INTRO
Welcome fellow entrepreneurs to the Amazon sellers school podcast, where we talk about Amazon and how you can use it to build an e commerce empire. A side hustle and anything in between. And now your host, Todd Welch.
[00:00:53:02 – 00:01:33:22] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
What’s going on everybody. Welcome to another episode of Amazon seller school. I’ve got Gary Huang on today and we’re going to be diving into Starting to sell in Amazon, Japan, which is pretty cool.
I’m excited for this one. Cause you know, I already sell, as you know, in the United States and Canada, a little bit in Mexico. And I’ve been interested in Japan and now I’ve found someone who actually lives in Japan and is an expert at selling in Japan, helping people sell in Japan. So really looking forward to this. So Gary, I appreciate you coming on the show.
[00:01:33:22 – 00:01:39:06] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Thanks so much, Todd. Konnichiwa, greetings from Tokyo, Japan, everybody. It’s great to to be here.
[00:01:39:06– 00:01:44:12] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yes, absolutely. Getting up nice and early for us at 6:30 am.
[00:01:44:12 – 00:01:56:06] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
It is, they say Japan is the land of the rising sun and I do see the sun rising outside right now, but I’m super excited to be here and share some, um, share some value about selling in Japan for Amazon sellers.
[00:01:56:06– 00:02:06:07] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, I usually get up at 5am, 5. 30 myself, you know, and have some coffee, read the Bible a little bit and stuff like that. So do you normally get up that early?
[00:02:06:07 – 00:02:28:26] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, I have a similar routine. When I can, I try to get up early at 5. Um, have some quiet time, you know, get my day centered. Um. Yeah, I try to, but, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, being a, uh, a father and, you know, husband sometimes with family, you know, there’s some issues that we have to take care of at night, but, uh, it’s all good.
[00:02:28:26– 00:02:45:52] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. I don’t always make it as well myself. It depends how late I was up the night before, depending on what’s going on, but. Like I said, I’ve got a one year old right now, but thankfully she’s sleeping through the night very well. But you know, sometimes she likes to keep us up a little longer than others.
[00:02:45:52 – 00:02:58:04] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. I have a six year old. So, you know, sometimes we gotta do the bedtime routine and all that good stuff. And I try to finish up some work late at night as well. So, uh, yeah, doing our best here.
[00:02:58:04– 00:04:24:09] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Absolutely. All right. Well, I’ve got a bio here for you a little bit about your background that I’m going to go through and then we can dive into and tell us a little bit more about how you, uh, over to Tokyo, I guess for one, uh, and how you got into selling on Amazon, things like that.
But. Uh, real quick here. We’ll, uh, so Gary is an e commerce and supply chain expert with over 15 years of experience now based in Tokyo. He’s renowned for guiding Amazon sellers into the Japanese market with his six bridges to selling in Japan framework. As the founder of the seven figure seller summit and leader of the Tokyo e com and Amazon sellers meetup group, Gary has significantly influenced global e commerce.
He’s fluent in Mandarin, which is awesome. His has launched multiple private label brands and has been featured in major industry outlets. Previously, he’s founded 8020 sourcing. And chaired the supply chain committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, advocating on international trade issues.
So lots of stuff there in your background, Kerry. So I guess, uh, why don’t we start and tell us a little bit about, uh, you know, where you’re originally from and how you ended up in Japan.
[00:04:24:09 – 00:07:19:10] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, definitely. I’m, I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and, um, my family heritage, um, my parents are originally from China, from mainland China, and then they emigrated to the States in the late 70s, and, um, So I was born and raised in L.
A. I went to school at USC, University of Southern California. Fight on Trojans. Um, and my background is kind of the intersection of e commerce and sourcing and supply chain, like what you highlighted. So, um, there’s been a couple of major chapters in my life. I’ll try to summarize it. Um, I got started in the whole online ecosystem with basically the first job out of college, I was actually a temp, a contractor at Google up in Mountain View.
This was very early pre IPO in 2004. So I wasn’t a full time employee, I was trying to get to full time and I I don’t have no technical background. I was working in their AdWords, like online editorial department. So I was literally like reviewing online ads back in 2004. And yeah, it was like kind of like the early, early days of AdWords, right?
If you, some of you guys remember, and literally I would just be approving and disapproving. Like those little three line ads, so like for, you know, family safe, non family safe, porn, um, there’s a whole, like, everything, like, a lot of stuff you don’t want to see, but, you know, there, it was, everything was there, but through that experience, unfortunately, I did not get the gig at Google.
If I did get the gig pre IPO, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today. I probably wouldn’t be talking to you guys. I mean, so maybe that’s a good thing. Um, you know, I’m sure like, you know, uh, the perfect path was there already for me. Um, but I took that setback, you know, quote unquote failure, uh, moved back home with my mom in L.
A. And I took that experience, I’m, kind of light bulb went off because I saw, hey, all these people are advertising for like, um, Tahitian nani juice, like these health supplements, um, Online poker was a big thing and I’m like, hey, you know, maybe there’s something here with this whole e com thing and I kind of had an entrepreneurial, you know, feel because my mom, she’s, um, retired, uh, women’s fashion designer.
So, um, she had her own clothing line and she, you know, she, so. For our family background, we came from an entrepreneurial background as well. So I am like, okay, let me try selling online. And back then this was 2005. Uh, eBay was big back then. As some of you guys remember, eBay was the biggest online platform. So I started learning about eBay. I would go to like those eBay life conventions. I don’t know. Like Todd, have you ever sold on eBay or?
[00:07:19:10– 00:07:32:16] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s where I kind of got my start is on eBay. Nothing huge, but you know, just started selling stuff around the house. And then I was selling these. I imported for a while and yeah, that’s where I got started.
[00:07:32:16 – 00:09:39:09] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Interesting. Okay. So a little like you, I, I did some, um, arbitrage. So I used to drive to estate sales like to Beverly Hills, Brentwood, like where all the rich people lived in LA. Early Saturday morning, you know, I would hunt Craigslist like the night before and I would always be the first person there to get like the first picking of the best stuff, so like all the designer label stuff and you know, and then, you know, I would haggle with them and then after that I would go, go back, I would take pictures, I would, you know, put them on eBay.
So anyways, that’s how I got started on Ecom. Um, I’ve literally like, I used to do a whole bunch of like, designer clothing and like, you know, because my mom had comes from a fashion background. So like, I mean, this is like, yeah, Um, different to what I’m doing today, but that’s why I learned like all the meticulousness of, you know, like in private photography, you know, listing, you know, descriptions.
And also, um, I started, um, building my first private label brand selling women’s shoes because one of my family friends. Was an importer from China for women’s shoes. So these were very niche type of, um, Mary Jane shoes, not stuff. You would just go into like target you can buy. Right. So like, I was sold to like these niche audience of people into like Rockabilly and like, like punk.
And we had like, you know. Cherry like on shoes and stuff like that. So anyways, I built a like a decent sized business. It wasn’t huge You know, we did like six figures Um, and you know, I was doing self fulfillment driving to the u. s. Post office, you know, you know picking packing myself Um, so anyways, that’s how I got started in e commerce.
That’s kind of like the first chapter. Um, Yeah that that was before the whole amazon thing. So at that time I was selling on ebay Yeah, that was, it was on eBay first and then we had, um, the, the Yahoo stores. I don’t know if you remember that Yahoo stores were like the precursor to Shopify, right? So they were like templates that you could build out your store.
So I had my, my online shoe store. And for those of you guys that, you know, watch like sitcoms in the eighties and nineties, you know, I would joke, like I was like the, the online Al Bundy, like from married with children. Like I was like an online, like shoes, shoe salesman, women’s shoes.
[00:09:39:09– 00:09:52:00] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, you know, the, the, the downfall of Yahoo is amazing. They made so many bad calls over the years because they owned everything. I mean, they were the rulers of the internet.
[00:09:52:00 – 00:10:08:29] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
They were the precursor to Google. I mean, they, they had like, you know, the big search engine before Google came in. And, and even like. Yeah, even the online search, like they had Overture, that was the precursor to AdWords.
I mean, like the search based, you know, the auction bidding, but, but yeah, that was kind of the first chapter.
[00:010:08:29– 00:010:19:06] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Very nice. Yeah. Never sold on any Yahoo stores or anything like that, but, uh, eBay and Craigslist. As well as where I kind of got my start.
[00:10:19:06 – 00:14:43:04] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
And then in 2008, I made a career shift. Um, you know, the global financial crisis was hitting, you know, sales were taking a hit, and at the same time, I’ve always had the itch to, to go to Asia.
Um, like in college, I did study abroad in Beijing. I did a summer internship in Shanghai. In Shanghai back then, it was kind of like, you know, the New York City of, um, of Asia, you know, super international, super cosmopolitan, very entrepreneurial. Very fast paced and things were cheap and, you know, going out was like a lot of fun.
I’m like, I kind of want to, you know, make a career switch. And I, I also, um, I majored in East Asian languages, Chinese minor. So, you know, I learned Chinese and I grew up speaking Chinese at home. So I. You know, that was like the fundamentals. But anyways, like I really want to make a career shift. I just remember when I was like packing up the shoes.
I was listening to the radio like NPR. They were talking about, you know, back in Beijing Olympics 2008. I’m like, hey, you know, I want I know that stuff. I really want to get into it. So long story short. I made a switch. I made a move. So I moved out to Shanghai. Um, summer of 2008 before Beijing Olympics, I had one really good friend that was working in Shanghai.
He let me crash on his couch and while I try to get settled, I just gave myself, Hey, I’ll give myself, um, I think it was three months. Okay. Three months to try to make it in Shanghai. Right to find a job to see if I can get something if I don’t get it. That’s fine. You know, I’ll just go back to LA. I did my best.
No regrets. Otherwise, I kind of felt like I would always regret it. Like if I never made the move to Asia to try, I would always regret it because I felt like I wasn’t really living up to my gifts and my potential because I could speak Chinese. Right? So long story short, I was super fortunate. I found a job with a small consulting company that did sourcing.
So the, the boss was a USC alumni of our school, but he was an older, more experienced guy, like in his like late fifties. So I learned so much from him, you know, sourcing, um, you know, working with Chinese factories, um, and the clients he he’s Brazilian Chinese. So ethnically, you know, born and raised in Brazil.
Um, You know, ethnically Chinese. And he was like working in Asia for like multinational companies, et cetera. So we would help Brazilian clients find Chinese suppliers. So all sorts of products from like. auto parts to solar water heaters to exercise bikes for gyms, you name it, right? Umbrella. So literally I’ve visited hundreds of Chinese factories, you know, did like all the sourcing, the negotiation, looking out for the good, the bad, the ugly.
Um, yeah, so that, that’s kind of the second chapter of my life starting from 2008, um, until 2019, I lived and worked in Shanghai. And, uh, met my wife, uh, super blessed. I met her in Shanghai. We got married in 2015. And then, um, about 2016, you know, I was listening to these podcasts, like in Shanghai, in my apartment.
And I heard about like the Amazon FBA thing, right? Uh, I don’t know when you got started, but like it was around 2015. Um, I was listening to the. 2014, yeah, around that time, uh, so I would listen to Scott Volker, The Amazing Seller, um, you know, I was following Jungle Scout, yeah, Steve Chu, uh, my wife quit her job and, and all that stuff, so, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I, I kind of put two and two together, I’m like, because I had stopped my, my previous eBay business because it was just very difficult to run remotely, there wasn’t, you know, FBA at the time, but I’m like, hey.
You know, I can run this from, from Shanghai, right? Because I’m on the ground. I know how to do the sourcing. I mean, I could literally hop on the train from Shanghai, be at the factory in like an hour and a half. Right. And then I started getting, um, onto Amazon and selling FBA. So I had a business partner at the time.
And then the first project we launched, first product we launched on Amazon FBA at the time was Apple watch bands. So that was when you remember Apple watch first launched. Um, and then we created like different. Bands in different materials, different colors, because Apple only launched like I think 12 bands at the time, right?
And then they had silicon, they had that really expensive like the Hermes leather and they had like that Milanese one That was like 150 bucks. So we we sold like, you know, like nylon like NATO bands So I don’t know if you’re are you a watch guy Todd?
[00:14:43:04– 00:014:46:11] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, I got my my Garmin
[00:14:46:11 – 00:17:49:14] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Nice. Okay. So smartwatch. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, like we kind of borrowed from like, you know, watch enthusiasts, like, you know, those NATO bands, and then we created like Apple watch NATO bands. Um, so we put them on Amazon FBA and, um, One of the like the hacks that we did to get more sales is my business partner who’s based in LA He was like very well connected and like in the tech like Like news industry.
So like one of his friends worked for in gadget. He’s like At the time, he was like one of the big, like, Apple, you know, reporter guys. And like, so they covered us in Engadget. And then they linked our Amazon, Amazon page. And this sales just like spiked through the roof. And we just sold out. We’re like, oh man, it’s going crazy.
You know, so, so that, that was like, you know, like almost like influencer, like, you know, external traffic marketing back in the day. This, this was like. 2016. Um, yeah. So anyways, that, uh, so throughout the years, um, so eventually my business partner and I, at the time we went our separate ways because he, he wanted to go a different route and then I launched a number of other private little products and like a whole bunch of different, um, industries.
And then, um, yeah, so that, that’s the second chapter. And then the third chapter was, uh, 2018 when my wife and I, yeah. Uh, we got pregnant with our son, right? He’s six now. So this was like six and a half years, almost seven years ago, right? Um, and at that time, I, when I started selling on Amazon, at the same time, I created a blog called AD20 Sourcing, which is still up to date.
And it’s really designed to share about sourcing best practices for, um, For Amazon sellers, the e commerce business owners, so coming from the perspective of sourcing professional with like over a decade experience on the ground, I would like blog about all of these, you know, tricks of the trade, et cetera, and I was invited to speak at a number of conferences, including the ones in Hong Kong, so, um, I would fly to Hong Kong like twice a year at the global sources summit and where I would be one of the speakers, right?
To talk about sourcing, best practice, et cetera. But the same time I was listening into the other speakers because I wanted to learn myself, right? Like, you know, all the, what seven figure sellers are doing. So 2018, yeah. Um, my wife was expecting. I couldn’t go to Hong Kong anymore, so I had like the inspiration.
Why not invite these seven figure sellers to teach me online and to teach everyone else online. So that was the genesis. That was like the beginning of the online seven figure seller summit. So it’s really designed to help online sellers like you and me and everyone else listening today, um, to grow scale and exit their businesses.
Um, so. Fast forward to today, we’ve run, um, nine online seven figure seller summits. Um, we usually get about 1, 500 to about 2, 000 people that get the free pass. And, um, yeah, we won a couple of awards. Um, we were voted favorite Amazon conference in the world two times in a row. Um, yeah. So that’s kind of like the third chapter. And, um, the, sorry, I’m just going through this. Interrupting at any time.
[00:17:49 :14 – 00:17:52:03] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. No, absolutely. Keep going.
[00:17:52:03 – 00:25:04:08] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, so the fourth chapter, why am I in Japan? Right? Um, so we, so I started that and then Um, it was about 2019, end of 2019, like before, like the big pandemic was going to hit us, right? Nobody knew what was going to happen, and my wife and I were raising our son Harrison, and he was about a one year old, and we were making, trying to make a decision, should we stay in Shanghai, or should we move to the States, where, you know, my family is?
We’re trying to make a decision for our family, where do we want to raise our son? Right. So we were still kind of like on the fence and we’re like, it was about November of 2019. It was getting cold. Um, it’s just past Thanksgiving. We’re like, okay, let’s, let’s take a trip somewhere warm first, right? It was like late November 2019.
So we, we took, um, Like a trip to Southeast Asia Talking about places that are warm like where you are Todd, right? So we went to Thailand So and we went to Vietnam, but we didn’t know that the pandemic was just like literally just starting to hit China at that time This was late November, right? So as we were traveling The news broke out, right?
And, you know, the outbreak was starting and we were, I was still, like, I ran an online summit. I remember it was in Da Nang, in Vietnam. I was running it in between, like, we were traveling from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to Da Nang. And kind of like digital nomad style with our one year old. Um, and we were like, okay, China doesn’t look like a good place to go back right now.
Let’s wait it out. So we looked at the map. Where should we go? Right? And we’re like, Japan, we always like to travel to Japan, right? My wife and I used to go like Twice a year just for like the food and you know the culture and people are very nice. It’s safe. It’s clean Um, so we’re like, okay, let’s uh, we looked at okinawa.
Okinawa is like pretty close. You know, we were like diverting through hong kong Um, and let’s just go there, right? So, you know, as an American, you know, we can go like visa free for 90 days, right? Um, and my wife, who’s Chinese, she had already like a, a visa for Japan, coincidentally or, you know, fortunately, right?
So like, okay, with our baby, with our son, one year old. So we, we flew out to Okinawa with the intention of waiting this thing out, right? Nobody knew what was gonna happen. So we ended up, um, staying in Japan. This was five years ago. This was January. Late january of 2020 like almost five years to to the day, right?
Um, and So I ended up just we we just we ended up staying in in okinawa If you’re wondering like what about the visa? Like, what did you do? We we were like the only tourists remaining like on the tourist visa during the pandemic because fortunately the japanese immigration government they allowed um Like, um, an exemption, an extension for any foreign foreigners that had difficulty returning to their home countries because of COVID, which was the case for us, obviously, um, they allowed an extension.
So what we did is we literally lived like 90 days at a time. And every like. 60 days, we would go to the immigration office in, um, in Okinawa and, you know, plead our case and explain the situation and, you know, thank God, you know, every time we got the visa stamp extension, right? So literally, we got that extension, I think like 10 times.
We stayed in Okinawa for about two and a half years and I was very fortunate. I was able to run my business remotely, right? All I, I had my laptop. I had like all of my, you know, gear, um, and my son was like one. And, you know, my wife, she did all the heavy lifting with like the childcare and I had daddy duty as well.
Um, so long story short, I was doing like continuous, like the online events and, you know, at that time there were everything offline stopped, right? So like everything was done online. So anyways, um, that’s how we got started in Japan. And, um, we ended up really. Enjoying Japan. And then I’m like, Hey, while I’m here, let me try selling on Amazon Japan.
Um, and no, I’m, I’m not fluent in Japanese. I mean, I came into Japan, not really knowing Japanese. Right. And then I found ways that I can still in Japan, even if I don’t speak Japanese. And we can talk a little bit about that as well. Right. So I ended up selling. A product in japan and started getting traction and I ended up being like the the number one seller of that product in In the toy space because I just noticed like hey, there’s a need for this and it was you know pandemic time and um, Um, yeah, i’ve talked about the product before.
Um, it’s actually like it’s a kite right because You know, kites, you know, it was great outdoor activity during COVID because it’s away from screen time, right? And culturally, Japan has like certain times of year where people, it’s a thing, like they go out and fly kites, right? And then I was able to find, you know, I sourced the product from China, import it into Japan, sent it to myself, sent it to Japanese FBA, listed it online, Amazon seller central Japan.
We can talk more about this. Back end, you can try, everything is in English. Right? I mean, you have to get the listing translated, but long story short, I was able to do it. Even at the time, I didn’t know any Japanese. I know some Japanese now, but I’m not fluent. I have a team member, she’s Japanese, that helps, but you’re able to sell in Japan.
If I’m able to sell in Japan, I know a lot of you guys out there can do it too. So anyways, that that’s that’s where we are today And we ended up why are we in tokyo? Um After the pandemic ended It wasn’t a smooth transition. We couldn’t get like any and a visa extension because we’re on a tourist visa So like the immigration offices officer steps very politely, um, you know pandemic is coming to an end.
You need to find a way to To, to get out of here basically. So we wanted to stay in Japan because, you know, we liked the culture and, you know, we’re kind of getting settled and, you know, the business, you know, we were getting traction. So I ended up starting a company in Japan, but I couldn’t start the company while I was on a tourist visa.
So we ended up going to Thailand, to Bangkok again, because at that time it was late 2022, China, Shanghai, we couldn’t go back because they were getting hit with like the worst COVID at that time. As some of you guys remember, you know, like my. My in laws, they were like quarantined in their house for like, I think 60 days.
They couldn’t even go out of their apartment in Shanghai. And they had a dog. They couldn’t even like, they had to like secretly sneak out to walk their dog at night. That’s, that’s how severe it was. Right. So we, we couldn’t go back to Shanghai, obviously. So we ended up going down to Thailand, which, which opened their borders.
Um, this was late 2022. So, you know, with our son, he was about. Three years old at the time. So like the first daycare that he got was in Bangkok. It was like international daycare. And then he, he picked up some Thai, which is kind of cool. Um, and, um, yeah, so long story short, we were very fortunate. Um, we were able to get the business set up in Japan and that we decided to move to Tokyo for, um, for business reasons, just because there’s no more business to be done with like, you know, the partners, you know, I work with Japanese agency, service providers and sellers, and also, you know, setting up the Tokyo meetups as well as, um, education.for our son, more school options in Tokyo. So, um.
[00:25:04:08 – 00:25:09:00] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Okay. All right. So they eventually gave you a permanent residence or something?
[00:25:09:00 – 00:25:25:15] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
No, we don’t have permanent residence, but you know, being on a visa, um, um, having a business, I was able to get a manager visa. So I’m on a business manager visa. So it’s like a working visa.
And then they also provide the visa for our family. So, yeah, so that’s how we, we got everything.
[00:25:25:15 – 00:26:03:23] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Ok. Awesome. Very nice. I love that. That’s, uh, an amazing, you know, journey to, to get to where you are. It’s always interesting to see how people end up in. Certain positions and everything that you go through, you know, especially when you’re, you’re younger, you know, and you haven’t experienced all of the different seasons of life and how things change, you just, uh, you know, you’re young and you’re like, okay, I’m going to be a computer programmer and I’m going to work here or there or whatever, and then life. You know, sometimes it takes you on a journey.
[00:26:03:23 – 00:26:06:17] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure.
[00:26:06:17 – 00:27:05:26] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
So yeah, that’s, uh, uh, an awesome background for sure. So I appreciate you sharing all that. So let’s, uh, you’ve got some slides and we can dive into, uh, people selling in Japan. So if you want to go ahead and share your screen. And for anybody that is listening, we’re going to, uh, you know, describe anything that’s visual and stuff like that, and really dive into it.
And like I said, in the beginning, I, I don’t sell in Japan myself. Um, but you know, smart scout just released some data claiming that Japan is possibly the second largest market at this point. Um, I believe the U S was like 454. Uh billion and japan is something like 54 billion, I believe it’s said So japan is definitely growing and growing fast in a market that i’m interested in
[00:27:05:26 – 00:27:37:12] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, that’s actually news to me because at the time of this Uh when I put together this presentation, um, I mean this presentation I it I I did it like last year, right japan’s ranked number four and germany. So so Number one biggest Amazon marketplace is the U. S., obviously. Number two is Germany, three is U. K., and four was Japan. So, um, I would love to see that data from SmartScout. So, Scott, if you’re listening, please send it over. I would love to see it.
[00:27:37:12 – 00:28:12:18] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, for sure. I emailed it to ya, and uh, we can actually Uh, we’ll throw it in the show notes a link to it as well But he just says amazon doesn’t disclose the revenue of each of the international markets They’re small compared to the u.
s But they put together the numbers and it shows united states 433 billion japan 555 billion germany 45 billion United Kingdom, 39 billion, and then Canada, 17 billion, and on down from there, Italy, France, Spain, Mexico, India, Australia.
[00:28:12:18 – 00:28:13:27] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
How much was Germany?
[00:28:13:27 – 00:28:25:23] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Germany is at 45 billion. So supposedly, assuming, uh, you know, these numbers are correct, Japan has the second highest revenue of an Amazon marketplace.
[00:28:25:23 – 00:28:38:00] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
All right, cool. I’ll take a look at that. All right, so let’s get into it. How, how should we do this, Todd? Do you want to like prompt me with some questions or should I just talk over the the slides? How should we do this?
[00:28:38:00 – 00:28:44:26] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, go ahead and get started and I’ll jump in with any questions and things like that as we go along.
[00:28:44:26 – 00:30:56:26] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Okay, so I I feel that, um, a lot of sellers, they just don’t know about Japan or they don’t even think about Japan. And when, you know, sellers are selling, they’re thinking about expansion. Usually, you know, if they’re selling the U. S., they go to Canada or Mexico first. So I kind of wanted to share first, like, why sellers should sell into Amazon Japan. So One reason besides the size of the market is if you look at shipping because everyone knows like, you know The Suez Canal like that whole scenario with the pirates attacking Canadian container ships in the canal This is affecting shipping prices, right and you know, it’s causing delays like, you know If you’re shipping to Europe, you know from Asia if you’re manufacturing in Asia, you know, if you’re shipping a product Let’s say you’re selling an EU.
You’re probably shipping to Germany, right? And previously, you know, before this whole, like, supply chain scenario, you would go take the shortcut through this U.S. canal. So if you guys are looking at the screen, you can see here. But now, you know, given that ongoing thing, and this has been going on for some time, and even now, they still haven’t straightened it out.
I mean, the whole geopolitical thing, I mean, I think that’s the other big thing, you know, talking about, you know, like, politics aside, you know, with the new tariffs from President Trump, You know, sourcing from China, sourcing from these countries into the us you’re gonna get hit with more and more tariffs and higher cost increases. Right. So on the shipping side for selling it to Japan, Japan has very, super efficient logistics. I mean, it doesn’t take a geography like genius to figure this out.
Like if you look, if you guys can see the map, like. People know where China is, right? It’s in Asia, and people know where the US is, which is very far away across the Pacific, right? But most people don’t realize how close Japan is to China. Like Japan is literally China’s neighbor, right? So if you look at the time it takes to ship a container from China to the us, which is about over a month, right? You know, plus delays, plus backlogs, et cetera. And if you ship it from China, Japan, literally a week.
[00:30:56:26 – 00:31:08:09] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
I just measured it real quick. I just measured it on Google Maps. And from Tokyo to Shanghai is just over a thousand miles. I. Away, which is the same as say, LA to Austin, Texas.
[00:31:08:09 – 00:32:18:07] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. LA to Austin. Right? So that’s like halfway across the country. And so you’re gonna get your products a lot faster if you’re selling in Japan. And when I was, I. I was speaking with an eight figure seller Brandon Young. You know, I was sharing about Japan. This was kind of like a light bulb moment because in terms of inventory and cash flow, because everyone knows that, you know, Amazon is really a cash flow business, right?
You gotta, you know, spend more money, buy more inventory as you scale, you can actually buy. Less inventory selling into Japan. Turn it over faster and ship it faster in, right? So rather than, let’s say for the US, if you’re stocking two, three months inventory per shipment for Japan, you could cut that down significantly, let’s say to like a month or even less, depending on how you want to do it. So that frees up your cash flow. So for the more experienced sellers. Immediately, that would be a huge benefit. Right, because you’re trying to scale, right? So, so that’s number one. The selling to Japan. You have more efficient logistics. You can place smaller orders, you can turn over faster. It will free up your cash flow. Okay.
[00:32:18:07 – 00:32:33:04] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. Seven to 10 days. I mean, that’s basically like sending a pallet from, you know, Florida to Seattle or something like that. You know, usually that’s about five to 10 days to send a pallet across the United States.
[00:32:33:04 – 00:35:54:02] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yes. So it’s a lot faster and it’s a lot cheaper too because the distance is shorter, right? So, so that’s the first reason. The second reason, and this slide is now outdated because Todd corrected me, but the news is even better because previously Japan was the fourth biggest Amazon marketplace in the world. And if this new data is correct, Japan’s now number two. So the good news about Japan is Amazon.
Is the most popular online shopping website in Japan. So just like it is in the States. There’s Amazon Prime in Tokyo. So I literally, you know, I can buy anything from like, you know, pet supplies for our Guinea pig to like a new TV or you know, clothes, I mean, you name it, right? They even sell alcohol on Amazon Japan, which is a big no-no, I know.
In the States, right? Yeah. You can order like booze. I mean, just saying, right? Yeah. So, yeah, Japan, so the customers, the people in Japan, they’re used to shopping online. Like since Covid, there’s been a huge spike in online shopping. Econ penetration rate is 74%, 93 million online shoppers in Japan. I mean, the most people don’t realize this, okay.
The population of Japan is 126 million people. It’s doubled the population of the uk. And it’s the fourth largest GDP economy in the world, right? And then e-comm is still forecast to grow about 6% in Japan. So Japan is a big market, but what people don’t realize is there’s less competition in Amazon in Japan, and there’s weaker competition in Amazon, in Japan.
So in this study. In terms of active Amazon and marketplace sellers, Japan is ranked number eight in the number of sellers. And then there’s actually more sellers selling in smaller markets like Italy, France, India, Spain. Yeah. There’s actually more people selling in Italy, and Italy is a like a pretty.
Small market compared to Japan. So that’s you know, the whole blue ocean, you know, like saying, right? I mean, it’s not like a red ocean, like, you know, obviously the states is the biggest market, but there’s the most sellers, right? But if you’re thinking like contrarian, hey, maybe I can put my product in a.
Smaller market with less competitors. So it’s not like a blood bath, right? It’s a blue ocean. If that makes sense. And then also the competition is a lot less sophisticated in Japan. Like, in terms of, let’s say. The product images, a lot of the best sellers, even today on Amazon and Japan, they only have two images, right?
They’re not maximizing everything. All the tools you have on Amazon, you know, with all the listings, with the a plus content, with all of the sponsor brand video ads there’s still a lot of opportunity ’cause the competition is not as sophisticated in Japan yet. Right as some of these other markets. And also in terms of the translations there’s a lot of, there’s like, who’s selling in Japan?
It’s roughly about half Japanese sellers and half Chinese sellers. And for the Chinese sellers, they’re competing mainly on price. So the translations may not be as localized. They’re a little crude not done super well. So there’s still room to sell in Japan right now, and I’ll show you some more data. Okay.
[00:35:54:02 – 00:36:06:17] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Very nice. Yeah, and I just I just compared it to the USA. So USA is 346 million people. So Japan is about 35, 30 6% of the size of the USA.
[00:36:06:17 – 00:38:037:05] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
It’s very big, and Tokyo is like a huge metropolis and like I think like a fourth or a third of the people all live in Tokyo just because like all the companies are here, all the jobs are here.
All of you know, like Tokyo’s, like one of the, it’s like the most popular tourist destination in the world, right? We see tourists like every day. I hear like. 12 different languages being spoken outside my office in Tokyo, Shibuya. So yeah it’s super popular. Yeah, so basically Japan’s the four, it’s like, like the big secret about selling Amazon, selling on Amazon, right?
It’s the marketplace nobody’s selling in. Just to give you guys an idea of the lack of competition I took side by side face off comparison for yoga mats, right? So everyone knows like yoga mats, it’s like super saturated product. Don’t sell yoga mats, right? So. That’s true for the us but in Japan, that’s not necessarily the case.
Okay, so side by side comparison on the left amazon.com, US search term thick yoga map, the number one bestseller has 75,632 reviews. 4.6 stars, right? And then on the right side, the Japanese bestseller thick yoga mat only has 373 reviews, right? 3.9 stars. And if you are wondering, do Japanese people do yoga?
Yes. Japanese people do yoga as well. They have yoga studios. The market size may not be as big, but there’s still a lot of opportunities that you might be surprised about selling in Japan. Okay. And then another big thing about selling in Japan, that’s a. A plus is lower PPC, right? So it’s just economics, right?
There’s less sellers, there’s less competition, there’s less people bidding for keywords, right? We’re seeing PPC as low as 29 cents a click. And I think people will be pleasantly surprised, right? Obviously you have to like, you know, translate and localize everything. But yeah. And there’s also lower FBA fees in Japan.
Like, you know, everyone, like last year there was a whole new round fees. You know, we had so stock come on a webinar, they broke it down for us very nicely. But long story short, in Japan at the time of this presentation, there was no inbound placement fees no inventory fees. Aren’t hit until later age.Inventory surcharge die until later and it’s less as well. So stacking up. There’s less fees in Japan.
[00:38:37:07 – 00:38:47:23] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, for sure. I mean, just the low inventory fee itself there is 4 cents to 20 cents compared to 32 cents to a dollar 11 in the US
[00:38:47:23 – 00:38:56:17] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
This was last year, so, so there may have been some adjustments, but on the whole, I mean, we know the trend. The fees are a lot lower.
[00:38:56:17 – 00:39:06:08] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yep, for sure. Now I’m assuming you’re sending everything into a WD over there, or I’m sorry, FBA over there. They don’t have anything like a WD
[00:39:06:08 – 00:39:43:09] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
they don’t have A WD yet, but yeah, we’re sending everything into FBA and some people use three pls here in Japan and so that’s another option as well.
But just on the whole, like, Japan is not as big as the US so. You’re not going to have to ship it like really far because Japan is just like a chain of islands. So besides like Okinawa, which is like the southern island that it takes a little longer to ship down there. And Hokkaido, which is in the north, pretty much like the main island, Japan it’s not gonna take a lot of you know, time to ship.
[00:39:43:09 – 00:39:50:18] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. It’s only like the size of California and Oregon combined, I believe is about. A similar size.
[00:39:50:18 – 00:43:25:01] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
That’s right. That’s right. So, yeah, so I feel it’s pretty ridiculous that, you know, it’s a big market and not too many people are talking about it, even to this day. So that’s why I wanted to break it down for you guys.
How to get started selling in Japan. So, before we talk about how to sell in Japan I pulled about 200 sellers and then they share with me. These are some of the biggest challenges that you told us about setting in Japan. There’s the language barrier. There’s no understanding what’s involved. There’s the total ignorance of the marketplace, the steps setting up having FPA there with the stock in the country.
Legislation rules of entering import compliance are not transparent. PPC as of course, our obstacle because of the language. Traditional marketing does not work. Regulations, proper listing translations, food import requirements, so this is all true. But I’m going to distill down some of the answers for you guys in what I call the the six bridges to selling on Amazon Japan.
Okay? So at the end of this, most of your questions will be answered. Okay? So, Todd, feel free to jump in anytime. So. If you’re deciding whether or not to sell in Japan, the first bridge across is product market fit. So the question is, will my product sell in Japan? Obviously you don’t want to go in blind and just dump like 500 units into Japan without doing any research whether or not it’s gonna sell.
So the good news is there’s a number of ways you can do this and some of these tools you’re probably using already. Okay, so if you’re selling on Amazon in the US there’s the Amazon product Opportunity Explorer in Seller Central, right? So this will help you gauge. So you, the beauty of Amazon Japan is Seller Central.
Everything is basically the same. Okay? There’s the Japanese language, but there’s a language toggle in Seller Central in Japan, you can set everything to English, so literally you can read it. Okay I mean the keywords and stuff are in Japanese, but you can also machine translate that so you can get a general idea very quickly going through the Amazon product Opportunity Explorer the second.
Way to gauge product market fit is to use external tools out there, such as Jungle Scout, helium 10 DataDive. They already support Amazon Japan. The accuracy of each tool is, it may not be as accurate as in the US because. They don’t have as much data set in Japan, but it can give you, it can gauge a general idea of the search volume and the competitor analysis.
So most of you guys are using one of these three tools. So that’s another way you can get started for product market fit. So I just wanted to share what for those of you guys watching the video, this is a screenshot of the Amazon Japan search page. So I typed in a search term dog bed in English. Okay.
And Amazon Japan’s website will machine translate that into Japanese and it will spit out through search results for dog bed in Japanese. Okay. I. Again, another big thing selling it to Amazon Japan is you can toggle the language to English. So as you can see on screen, there’s a language toggle setting here.
So you can machine translate everything into English. So let’s say Todd, if you’re, I don’t know if you’re like how much you talk about your product, like for your product, you literally can go to Amazon, Japan. You can type in like the English keyword and you can get a quick glimpse of what it looks like.
[00:43:25:01 – 00:43:30:29] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, that’s nice. They have the translate button there. Definitely help you do the research a little easier.
[00:43:30:29 – 00:43:54:23] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A fourth tip for product market fit is a nifty little website. Some of you guys may have heard called YouTube. Okay. YouTube is huge in Japan. Okay. You can actually get a glimpse of how Japanese people use a product. Okay, so for example, for your product, I don’t know, Todd, do you talk about your product on your podcast or no?
[00:43:54:23 – 00:43:56:15] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
No, not typically.
[00:43:56:15 – 00:44:56:15] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Okay. So let’s say you are in the dog bed niche, right? Or if you’re in the kitchen niche, you literally can go on. YouTube, you can type in like, you know, a Japanese kitchen walkthrough and you can get a glimpse of what a Japanese kitchen looks like.
So you can see, hey, the kitchen’s a lot smaller. You know, one of the big things that are different is I don’t see like a dishwasher. You know, I don’t see an oven, right? So if I’m selling like. You know, oven baking accessories, Hey, maybe that’s not gonna work, right? But like the refrigerator is designed a little differently.
So if I’m selling like a water filter, the, you know, like a Brita filter, I may need to modify the size of it to fit a Japanese refrigerator because of how the shelf works, right? So YouTube is another great way to get a glimpse of how people use a product. Alright, so, yeah. Yeah, so, so that’s Bridge One product, market fit. Any thoughts or questions so far?
[00:44:56:15 – 00:43:13:10] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
No, I like that the YouTube is a really good idea. Helium 10, though. I use Helium 10 myself. So you say their data is not quite as good as the US marketplace, though.
[00:43:13:10 – 00:45:36:08] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
None of the tools are as accurate as I would’ve liked in Japan. I’m not trying to badmouth anybody, but just, it’s just simply they don’t have the data set.
One thing you can do is you can literally go on Amazon, Japan and look at Amazon’s, you know, sales data, because if there’s significant sales data, it will list it on the on the search page, right.
[00:45:36:08 – 00:45:40:08] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, that’s nice that they do that. Now. It really helps to give you an idea.
[00:45:40:08 – 00:47:25:15] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
That’s a huge tip, guys, for those of you guys, yeah, that’s a huge tip.
In case you didn’t notice, make sure note that down and remember, you can toggle that into English. So even if you don’t speak a word of Japanese you can get some, you know, additional product market fit data like right away when you’re listening to this podcast. Okay? Alright. Okay. Just for the sake of time I’m just gonna skip this.
Okay. Bridge number two is localization and what I call ification. So if you’ve done the research, if you’re pretty confident that I. Your, you can sell in Japan, then you have to consider the next step the localization Japan ification, right? So it’s not just translating your listing. You have to make sure your listings are tailored to the Japanese market and culture.
So that goes to, that goes from everything from the product, you know, the listing title, the bullet points, all the way to the images, right? So like some people feel like, Hey, I can just use my preexisting images. You know, for the US and just put ’em in Japan. Right. But not so fast. Case in point, if you’re looking on screen, we have this example from Maybelline New York, which is a major women’s cosmetics brand.
And. In the states, like, you know, the models you know, the style is shot a lot differently than Japan. So, in Japan I’ll kind of describe this for those of you guys listening on the podcast, the Amazon Japan, Maybelline, New York page like. I mean, Todd what do you think is different?
I mean, you’re coming in with fresh eyes, right? You’ve seen, like, I, you probably don’t, you’re not a cosmetic guy obviously, but I mean, what looks different to you, like on this Japanese Amazon Maybelline storefront?
[00:47:25:15 – 00:47:30:16] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. So it, this is already tailored for the Japanese market or?
[00:47:30:16 – 00:47:36:06] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. So it, this is already tailored for the Japanese market or? Yes. Yeah, this is literally from the Amazon Japan storefront page.
[00:47:36:06– 00:47:47:11] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Okay. I guess, lots of brown. Yeah, I don’t know the skyscrapers and such in the background.
[00:47:47:11 – 00:49:02:14] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, that’s good. Those are, you know, the, there’s obviously the Japanese like skyscrapers, you know, New York, right? They’re playing on like the foreignness of the brand, right? Because a lot of Japanese people, they like foreign brands, you know, they’re cool.
And also you can tell like the models, like they, they’re using more Asian models. Not only that, like they’re very fair skinned, they’re very light skinned, right? Because this, the. The beauty, like the standard of beauty, quote unquote in Asia is like fair skin ver versus us where it’s tan, right? So like you can see like the look is different and then, you know, there’s tremendous detail.
Like I know you guys probably can’t read this, but it’s like 17 seconds for like, you know, one application and then. There’s also like, you know, it’s the number one like bestseller and there’s also some English mis mixed in right? Fashion brow, ultra fluffy, like mixed into the Japanese. But the English, it doesn’t sound like your standard English.
It kind of sounds funny because like Japanese people, they like to use certain English phrases and it’s kind of like cool for Japan, but it kind of sounds funny. So. That’s what I mean by ification, right? It’s not just a strict translation of the US page with the same images, right? You have to Japan apply it so that, that’s the point that I’m trying to get across. Right?
[00:49:02:14 – 00:49:13:27] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. I didn’t even read that Engli, that English there, but yeah, fashion. What does it say? Fashion brow, ultra fluffy. They really make a sense, but kind of, but yeah.
[00:49:13:27 – 00:49:58:19] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. So I mean, you have to consider this as. You are localizing your listings into Japan. Okay? The other thing is obviously translations. Don’t just use Google Translate because it does a very poor job of translating your listings, right? So to sell in Japan, ideally find someone native Japanese speaker that can translate it into Japanese and best to get someone with Amazon SEO experience and translation. One translation service I’ve used in the past is. Yana like her translation company YLK translation. So, they have native Japanese speakers. So if you’re looking for that, alright.
[00:49:58:19 – 00:50:06:07] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
How is say chat GPT or grok at translating English to Japanese chat?
[00:50:06:07 – 00:50:32:08] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
GPT is better than Google Translate, but I would still, because this is important, right? Because you wanna make sure you have proper Amazon, SEO Japan like ranking, right? So if you are just doing something. Not super critical, then you can get away with it. But if you’re talking about your listing, I mean this is like the initial impression. You wanna make sure you’re indexed, definitely hire a native speaker. Okay.
[00:50:32:08 – 00:50:52:07] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. Yeah. And they’re gonna know better, you know, what kind of primary keywords that the Japanese people are gonna be searching for. ’cause that may not be, well, probably isn’t gonna be the same as what we’re looking for in English a lot of times. So. And a simple translation is not gonna necessarily get that perfectly.
[00:50:52:07 – 00:51:24:26] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, it’s, yeah, it goes beyond the translation and there’s like different scripts. There’s like three different scripts in Japanese in addition to English. So like a native speaker with SEO experience will know how to do the proper research to make sure you’re including the right scripts as well. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. So like a quick. Example of Japanification. So pop quiz, I’ll put you on the spot. Todd. What is the number one most popular restaurant for Christmas in Japan?
[00:51:24:26 – 00:51:27:01] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Well, if it’s the image you’re showing me, I mean, I think KFC.
[00:51:28:01 – 00:51:30:00] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, you are right. Ding.
[00:00:51:30 – 00:51:33:03] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Santa Claus in a KFC bucket.
[00:51:33:03 – 00:53:38:19] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yes, in Japan, and some of you guys, this might be surprising for you guys. KFC is the most popular restaurant in Japan to get fried chicken. So the reason behind this is there were some very sharp KFC marketing executives, like back in the seventies, and they noticed that, you know, Japanese people they’re open to certain foreign things, right?
So like Christmas, you know, Christmas like, like. In Tokyo, they have all of, like, the street lightings, they call it the minations. It’s very beautiful. And then a lot of people they want to like, celebrate it as well. And the, I mean, they see like, you know, the, you know, the ham and the Turkey, right?
But the thing is, as we saw in the kitchen, YouTube video earlier. Japanese, like apartments don’t have ovens, so there’s no way you’re gonna fit like a huge ham or Turkey into your toaster oven here in Tokyo, right? So these smart marketing executives were like, okay, you know, the closest thing to that is like fried chicken, right?
It kind of looks like the different parts of the Turkey. It’s American, right? So. It became a thing they were running promotions for like, you know, this Christmas dinner and then it caught on and now you know you have to book a table at KFC for Christmas dinner or you have to book like takeaway in advance to get it.
Like people are literally lining out the door on Christmas for that. For KFC. So this is an example of Japan ation. Other brands like Starbucks, they do this very well. Like in Japan, you know, it’s very famous for the cherry blossom season. The Saura in the springtime, right? So Starbucks, Japan, they have like a cherry blossom coffee drink, right?
And it’s a thing like people are like taking selfies, posting it on socials, you know, so it just goes to show like. There’s ways that you do the ification, the localization, right? That’s how, that’s another way that you know, brands are successful. Okay. In Japan.
[00:53:38:19 – 00:54:12:03] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
For sure. And the other thing that I noticed there too is, you know, for example, the style of the building, it’s a very Japanese style building in that image, right?
That they have the TFC bucket on top of, you know, so that’s something that would be different than marketing the USA as well. And you know, I’ve always seen too I feel like the in Japan marketing and everything is much more vibrant and. High colorization. Is that the case?
[00:54:12:03 – 00:57:13:24] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, especially if you walk down the streets, like at night of like Shibuya, there’s like all the neon lights and there’s like the loud like speakers.
Yeah. So certain brands are into that, like for the younger people for like the middle aged people or. Like it’s different. It could be, but like there’s a lot of meticulous detail on the page as well. Like pe Japanese people really like, they pay attention to like a lot of details. So that would be one of the big differences as well.
Okay. So moving on to bridge three is important compliance, so that’s one. Very important bridge to cross because you wanna make sure if you’re importing into Japan, you wanna make sure you have all of your import licenses, regulations. So, long story short, there’s four key categories that tend to get more scrutiny from Japanese regulators.
So these are in the supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, and any plastic products that touches food or drink categories. So if you’re selling in any of these, be prepared for more intensive, checks and regulations, and another thing to be aware of is the costs of tests and compliance. The cost, depending on the size and complexity of the product.
So you may even need separate tests for the different parts of the products, which can be more expensive. In terms of selling in Japan, one of the myths is you, a lot of people think you have to set up a company to sell in Japan, that’s not the case. You can sell in Japan using your foreign LLC. If you have a US company, et cetera, you can sell in Japan.
However, you, what you do need is what they call a Japanese a CP, or attorney for customs procedures. So this is almost like your importer of record where you would. Hire a Japanese company to handle the import processes for you handle like any import duties, et cetera, and basically. The Japanese government, they just want someone on the ground where they can pick up the phone and call somebody in Japanese if there’s any problems, right?
So that’s one thing you do need to have if you’re looking for an A CP or if you’re looking for a important compliance company. I, one of my partners is a company based in Osaka called YU. NIGE. So they’re experts when it comes to doing all sorts of import compliance. They can answer your questions and you can get a, like compliance, regulat regulation report for a very reasonable cost.
So that would give you peace of mind and that would like help you find out the costs to to get your product in Japan or even if you can import the product in Japan. So, yeah, that, that’s a very important bridge to cross.
[00:57:13:2 – 00:57:34:19] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, so the similar to Canada, you know, especially, you know, this a CP ’cause we have a customs broker that handles our imports into Canada and takes care of, you know, paying all the duties and everything like that to get the product into Canada and then they charge us for that.
[00:57:34:19 – 00:58:31:19] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. So very similar model. Okay. Alright. Should we move on to the bridge? Four? Yep, let’s go. Okay. So bridge four is shipping and logistics and three pls. Biggest thing, as we mentioned earlier, it’s cheaper and faster shipping from China factory to Japan than to the US or eu. Other big thing is there’s no tariffs.
There are no like additional Trump tariffs, so that. Because there’s no trade war going on between China and Japan, or you know, your country and Japan, right? So, immediately that cuts at least 35% or even more off your landed costs. So that goes directly to your bottom line guys. And you could possibly price it more aggressively, you know, lower price to get more sales, or that can go into your marketing PPC budget or just can go into your pocket, right?
So think about that. That’s that’s big
[00:58:31:19 – 00:58:49:25] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Right now. Is that the is that most of the people that you’re working with are importing from China to Japan? Or do you work with a lot of people that are, say, creating their products In the United States or Canada or Europe and bringing them over to Japan.
[00:58:49:25 – 01:01:52:19] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
A lot of people are manufacturing in China, so you know, going from China to Japan, they would immediately, they would eliminate the tariffs.
But I also, I’m working with brands, let’s say like with products made in Europe. So that would be different. So yeah we, I mean we work with brands selling in us, selling in Europe, so we’re open to that. If you are if you’re like, you know, doing well, if you’re doing like seven, eight figures you’re looking into Japan, then I’m happy to speak some more to, to to help find out your chances of success.
Alright. And very quickly, Japan has trade agreements with a number of countries, including India, Vietnam, and Thailand. So a number of these countries will even have free trade agreements. So, for example, there’s a lot of products that we’re seeing made in Thailand, imported in Japan, because Thailand, Japan has have a free trade agreement, and many of these products come in duty free.
So not only are you know, saving on the shipping time, you potentially you could even cut out those duties, right? So, and lower lending costs more profit.
So let’s move on to bridge number five, launch strategy. Long story short, like the 80 20 rule of this is Amazon has what they call the global review system. And if you’re already selling your product in the US or eu, if you have a lot of reviews, let’s say you have like, you know, a thousand reviews on your product in the us, you can actually, you can carry over those reviews from the us.
Into Amazon Japan. So day one, when you launch, you launch with a thousand reviews, the same reviews that you’re carrying over. So that is like the big launch strategy in a nutshell, right? Because in Japan, not only are is the competition lower, I. The review thresholds are lower, right, as we saw earlier. So that means if, let’s say a thousand reviews in like us, maybe you are ranked like in the middle of the pack in terms of review count.
In Japan, you could be towards the top, right? You could be one of the biggest, you know, most reviewed sellers in Japan, and this is very important, Japan, because Japanese people, they don’t like to be like the first thing. They’re more conservative. When it comes to these things, so if there’s the social proof, if it has a lot of reviews, it’s already, you know, like a bestseller in the US or in eu, that builds trust and that will improve your conversion rates.
Right. So day one, that, that is a big thing. Okay. So I know some of you guys, you know, are experienced sellers consider that, right? That’s like the big launch strategy, right? So that, that solves like, you know, it just makes everything else easier. And um, you know, you need way fewer reviews to compete in Japan like this.
Even this diaper, um, brand analysis, this is kind of an extreme example about like this diaper brand. Um. Pampers. Like in the US they have 70,000 reviews in US, like similar diapers only have 13 reviews. Right. So you need way fewer reviews to compete in Japan.
[01:01:52:19 – 01:01:59:14] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
And do those, uh, are you seeing those come over automatically or is there anything you have to do to make sure they get pushed over?
[01:01:59:14 – 01:06:29:21] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Um, you, you just have to make sure that there are. You know, you, you use the Global Reviews program and you know, with Seller Central on the backend and um, yeah, they can carry over. But I mean, with Amazon, we know nothing is simple and straightforward. If you do, if it doesn’t work, then open up a case and you know, you gotta do the dance, et cetera.
Right. You gotta be persistent. I think most sellers, experienced sellers know what we have to do to get, you know, make things right. Right. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so. Continuing to bridge six from the reviews is, um. Ha, you know, having more reviews from day one, it actually makes everything else easier because that could, you know, have a piggyback effect of lowering your PPC costs, right?
Because you, you’re not like trying to sell a product with zero reviews, right? So. Um, bridge number six is to optimize your sales and marketing in Japan, Amazon, PPC in Japan. Overall, the, the cost per clicks will be a lot lower than US and eu. Um, there’s also opportunities with all the new types of promotions, ads, bid management, in-depth data for analysis, optimization, uh, like, you know, even like sponsor brand video, like, you know, the top of the page, like the, those ads, they’re all available in Japan and not many sellers are using it.
Yet. So it’s still like you can have like the early mover advantage even today. Okay. Um, outside of Amazon external marketing. It is very effective in Japan. It’s very big. Social media’s key. Uh, I wanted to give you guys some examples of Japanese influencer marketing and um, so these are examples of how, you know, Pokemon, you know, they have these like online videos.
Um, Coca-Cola, you know, avocado from Mexico, you know, these are all like Japanese. Influencers on YouTube, right? Uh, YouTube also, um, Instagram. Instagram is popular as well. Um, Twitter x surprisingly, is very big in Japan as well. One thing that is not big is Facebook. Okay? So as you can see in this graphic, social media Marketing 2023, the most used social media platforms in Japan Line is the number one social media platform.
Have you heard of line? Todd, I have not, yeah. Most people in North America have never heard of this. App Line is kind of like a super app. It was created in Japan. It’s big in Japan, it’s big in Thailand as well. It’s kind of like a combination of, um, if you’re familiar with China, it’s kind of like, like WeChat.
So if, if us, US comparison would be like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, um, combined and 82% of the. Internet users aged 16 to 64 use line. So, uh, line is effective to build an audience, to build a list. So like here in Japan, um, there’s, when you buy a product, you know, uh, there could be like a QR code. We’re, I mean, obviously we wanna keep it TOS compliant, but there are QR codes and there’s ways to get people to build a line audience.
And once you have that audience, it’s almost like a lever that you pull. Like anytime there’s a major holiday, uh, you run a line, you know, you send out a message to your line audience, like, Hey, we have a sale going on, you know, for, for New Year’s. Um, check out, you know, our product. It’s, you know, 500 yen off.
Right. And then the sales just like Spike every time you, you do that. Um, you know, we’re seeing that with, with some of the brands that are leveraging that. Okay. Twitter is the second biggest social media platform with 53% usage. Instagram is third, 49.5%. Uh, Facebook is ranked a lot lower than what people expect, only 24%.
And then TikTok, um, this study was done. A little over a year ago. So TikTok at the time was 18%, but I do see some people using TikTok. Okay. So, but the top three would be line Twitter and Instagram. YouTube is also very big. YouTube is in social media, but people use YouTube a lot in Japan. It’s also effective for, um, social media marketing.
Yep, for sure. Okay. Very good to know. Basically, that’s the end of the presentation. Um, I did put together a selling on Japan scorecard, so if you’re interested in selling on Japan, there’s a scorecard that we created and you can find out how your product scores. Um, I, it’s at seven figure seller Japan mastermind.com.
Sell. In Japan Dash scorecard. I know that’s a tough URL for those. If you guys are listening, maybe you can link it up in the show notes.
[01:06:29:21 – 01:06:39:11] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, we’ll, we’ll throw it in the show notes. So not a, not a big deal, but what is that, that’s essentially what, some kind of calculator or something like that where you can enter your numbers?
[01:06:39:11 – 01:07:11:21] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, so it, it’s like a, a 12 point scorecard across a couple of different categories. So you’ll find out how well your product is likely to sell in Japan, just so you have a better idea of that. And also if you have any questions, if you’re already selling, let’s say seven, eight figures, please reach out to me, uh, gary@eightytwentysourcing.com.
If you are interested in learning more about selling in Japan, um, if, yeah. So good luck guys. Hope to hope you guys can, uh, sell in Japan.
[01:07:11:21 – 01:07:53:11] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah, no, that was, that was great. I appreciate that, Gary. A lot of really good information. It makes me, I. It makes me have thoughts about, uh, different products that I could potentially sell in Japan.
Um, I think one of the problems for me is that a lot of my bigger selling products are actually made here in the us so that’d be a long journey over to, uh, Japan. But like you said, there’s a, you know, the Japanese people do like, um, USA stuff a fair amount, so there may be something there, but I’ll have to check out that scorecard and dig into it a little bit more.
[01:07:53:20 – 01:08:25:31] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, yeah. There are definitely, you know, people are willing to pay a premium. On certain products made in the us. Um, uh, and also like, it depends on the niche as well. So you might want to check out like, um, similar products on, you know, maybe check out YouTube, you know, see how like. Uh, people in that niche on YouTube may or may not use that product in Japan.
And then also go on, um, go on Amazon, Japan, the website, type in the English keyword and see what comes up. See if there’s any similar products with, um, significant sales or not.
[01:08:25:17 – 01:09:01:11] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
All right. Well that was fantastic. I think you answered, uh, pretty much all the questions that I would’ve had about, uh, selling in Japan.
It looks. Relatively straightforward, very similar to selling in Canada. Uh, you know, just mainly the, the distance and the language difference. Obviously the language is probably the big thing. Canada, at least they speak relatively the same English as we do. Um, so the language is gonna be the, the biggest thing, but.
Hiring a translator sounds like the best course of action if you really wanna make a good listing.
[01:09:01:11 – 01:10:12:31] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, you can also work with. You know, work with people like, like me that can help you, guide you through the process because you know, I, I have a team here in Japan, and if you, you’re already doing seven, eight figures, if you really are interested, um, let, let’s jump on a call because we can help you with the product market fit.
I mean, all six bridges, right? Like import compliance, we have a partner that can, you know, do all of that. You know, I’m, you know, my close partner like ate, they, they can do that and as well. But, um. But yeah, but I, I, I like to just leave everyone with just like one mindset, um, kind of like a hack that I’ve learned over the years that a lot of like sellers, like I see that are successful.
They, they, they see these, these challenges, like the language, the translation, not as like, not necessarily just something that’s like a difficulty, but like something that, Hey, once I get across this, this is a moat that’s gonna keep out the com competition. Right? That’s why there’s so few people selling in Japan, guys, right?
Like exactly what you said. But if you’re able to cross that, that’s a barrier to entry against the competition. So, uh, just like to leave that. Need that thought with you guys.
[01:10:12:31 – 01:10:28:12] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Yeah. That it, it really is, uh, all about mindset because, you know, a lot of people want, you know, the easy thing. But if it’s easy, then everybody can do it.
So the harder it is for you to figure it out and do it, the less likely most other people are gonna do the same thing.
[01:10:28:12– 01:11:15:31] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Right. Right. Right. And you have to be willing to be successful. You have to be willing to do things that other people are not be willing to do. Right. That’s why Todd, you know, you and me, we were waking up at 5:00 AM A lot of people are still like, you know, groggy in bed.
They’re sleeping in, right? So, I mean. And your listeners, I’m sure a lot of people are up early as well. I mean, if you’re staying all the way until the end, I, I mean, my hat’s off to you, right? I mean, you’re invested in your business, so hopefully we can, we can help you guys for sure. And so what was your website again, Gary?
So, the, the scorecard again is at uh, seven figure seller Japan mastermind.com/sell in Japan dash scorecard. Um. We should really make a better URL for the,
[01:11:15:31 – 01:11:21:12] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
and if people want help from you, if people want help from you to bring them over to Japan.
[01:11:21:12– 01:11:41:10] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Yeah, they can send me an email, Gary, at 80 20 sourcing.com.
If you’re already selling seven to eight figures in US or Amazon, eu, UK markets, then um, happy to have a conversation and, uh, see how we might be able to help and, um, you know, give you like, like, like a quick audit. Um, to see.
[01:11:41:10 – 01:11:45:33] TODD WELCH | HOST OF AMAZON SELLER SCHOOL
Okay. Awesome, Gary. Well this has been fantastic. I appreciate you coming on the show.
[01:11:45:33 – 01:11:52:16] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure. And, um, hope we we’re able to help some of you guys out there selling into Japan.
[01:11:45:33 – 01:12:06:25] GARY HUANG | E-COMMERCE & SUPPLY CHAIN EXPERT
This has been another episode of the Amazon Seller School podcast. Thanks for listening. Fellow Amazon Seller, and always remember, success is yours. If you take it.
