Japan Market News and Advice

A collection of news and articles about doing business in Japan

Tips to Selling Your Products on Amazon.co.jp and other eCommerce platforms in Japan

Tips to Selling Your Products on Amazon.co.jp and other eCommerce platforms in Japan

Is selling your products online in Japan something you have been thinking of doing but didn’t know where to start? We’ve put together a few tips on how to be successful at generating sales through eCommerce platforms in Japan, namely the increasingly succesful Amazon.co.jp platform. Japan offers a few options for eCommerce platforms. Rakuten, the […]

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Opportunity for Developers of Software and New Technologies in the Japanese Electric Power Industry Sector

Opportunity for Developers of Software and New Technologies in the Japanese Electric Power Industry Sector

Opportunity for Developers of Software and New Technologies in the Japanese Electric Power Industry Sector  Japan is in the process of deregulating its electric power industry sector. This process, which started in 1995, is scheduled to be completed by 2020.  In 2016 the residential retail electricity sector will be opened up to allow new entrants. […]

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Portable North Pole

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Portable North Pole is a “magical” online platform that lets you stay in touch with Santa. You can ask him to send your friends and loved ones Merry Christmas video messages and Xmas puzzles. Created by the good folks at Montreal’s UGroupMedia, PNP is a fantastic and amusing way to stay connected during the holiday […]

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Japanese Business Timeline

Foreign firms dealing with Japanese companies for the first time are often surprised by the time it takes to make decisions in Japan. Japanese interlocutors considering a partnership or even a simple transaction will bombard the potential supplier or partner with a surprising number of questions and will even ask the same questions a few times. One […]

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Do you speak Japanese?

Do you speak Japanese?

Trying to do business in Japan without speaking Japanese is not impossible, but it greatly limits the type of activities you can engage in. Unfortunately, learning Japanese is not an easy undertaking.  The Japanese language integrates three different alphabets, two parallel phonetic ones the hiragana and katakana, featuring 46 corresponding characters, and the kanji, or Chinese characters, […]

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Why are Japanese sites so cluttered?

Why are Japanese sites so cluttered?

There are many theories as to why many Japanese websites are cluttered. Most revolve around some cultural notions of how information is processed and space is commoditized. However, it can also be attributed to the process behind how most sites are built than any cultural preference. Websites, or rather those that commission them, often find themselves […]

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