In this episode, Kunle welcomes John Cant of Rising Sun Commerce, a Japan-focused Amazon agency. Today they talk about the opportunities and successes using Amazon Japan and the things you need to start selling overseas.

Covered Topics:

• John’s Background
• Selling in Amazon Japan
• Tax Requirements
• The Japanese Marketplace
• Pricing and Culture
• Order Fulfillment
• Brand Registry

Podcast Show Notes:

• 01:45 – Easily Grow Your Business With A Powerful Marketing Automation Platform! Check out Klaviyo
• 03:07 – Today’s Guest: John Cant
  • Living in Japan for 5 years
  • Working 9 years in eCommerce
• 06:16 – John shares his Japan experience
  • Living outside the city
  • Writing and speaking Japanese
• 09:30 – Jumping on Amazon Japan with his partner
  • They sold baby travel products
• 11:11 – The business opportunity in selling in Japan
  • Double the UK population
  • Rakuten is another big player in Japan
  • Yahoo Shopping
• 12:17 – Amazon is the easiest place to sell
• 13:11 – Tax requirements to consider
  • Sales tax and thresholds
• 14:16 – The Amazon Japan Marketplace
  • Quality is market priority
• 15:31 – Get the easiest way to backup your Shopify or BigCommerce store and undo unwanted changes with Rewind.io… Mention you heard about them at 2x eCommerce Podcast and get a ONE MONTH FREE TRIAL
• 17:40 – How the pricing goes in Japanese markets
  • Prices are more aligned in the US and UK
• 18:36 – John shares the categories they sold in
• 19:59 – Using culture in selling products
  • Highlighting the origin of products
• 21:15 – Researching viability in selling in Japan
  • Manual research
  • Use Google Translate for research terms
  • Use bestseller rank to check on other shops
• 23:28 – All about Amazon Japan order fulfillment
  • Importer of Record
  • Shipping from China takes only 48 hours by ship
• 25:21 – Acquiring product reviews
  • Using inside cards
  • Amazon’s platform
• 26:53 – Listings are written in Japanese
• 27:31 – Peculiarity: Japanese Alphabets
  • A native staff to Copywrite listings
• 29:52 – Sell in your own market first
• 30:32 – Brand registry
  • You don’t need a Japanese trademark
• 31:26 – Product images and photos
  • Busy web design
  • Videos are allowed in the seller central page
• 34:10 – Email John at jc@risingsuncommerce.com
• 35:13 – Join the 2xEcommerce Facebook Group

Topic Takeaways:

• Don’t be afraid to look out for opportunities even in overseas markets.
• Always prioritize quality on your products.
• Start to sell in your own market first to get some experience.

Tweetable Quotes:

Japanese people like quality products. High-quality UK products do very well in Japan. They are happy to spend on good-quality products.

Japan, in terms of its web design, a lot of pages are very busy…That is a trend.

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