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Service

Four services, in the order
you actually need them.

Most engagements start at the first and stop there if the answer is no. None of them requires you to have an entity, an office or staff in Japan first.

01 / ENTRY

Japan Market Entry Assessment

Before anything is committed, the question is whether Japan actually wants what you sell — and at what price, through which kind of buyer. We answer that with the competitive landscape and the real entry barriers mapped side by side, rather than listed separately, so the trade-offs are visible in one place.

Who this is for

Companies that have identified Japan as a candidate market but have no basis on which to compare it with the alternatives, and no way to test the assumption cheaply.

Diagram: several routes towards the Japanese market, most stopped by entry barriers such as certification, labelling and terms of trade, and the one route that gets through

Demand, read from the market rather than from a deck

Search behaviour, category structure, what comparable products already occupy the shelf or the tender, and at what price. Where the data does not exist, we say so instead of filling the gap with an estimate.

Barriers that actually stop entry

Certification, labelling, import requirements, the customary terms of trade in your category. Most entry plans fail on one of these rather than on the product itself.

The sequence to start from

Which segment first, which channel first, and what has to be true before the second step is worth taking.

An honest verdict

Including “not now”, with the reason. A market study that always concludes yes is not a study.

02 / SALES

Sales Representation in Japan

The hardest constraint is rarely strategy. It is that nobody is in the room. We act as your commercial presence in Japan — approaching partners, holding the meetings and reporting back in English — so that you can find out whether Japan works before you hire for it.

Who this is for

Companies with no staff, no entity and no distributor in Japan, for whom hiring a local salesperson first is too large a bet to make blind.

Diagram: an overseas head office briefs a representative inside Japan, who screens potential partners, meets two of them and reports back

Partner sourcing and screening

Distributors, retailers, trading companies or direct accounts — shortlisted against your capacity, not against an ideal case.

First contact in Japanese

Approaches are made in Japanese, in the register the recipient expects. This is the point at which most cold outreach from abroad is discarded.

Meetings designed, then held

Materials prepared, the meeting run, objections handled. We tell you what was actually said, including the parts that did not go well.

Reporting you can act on

In English, with the decision points separated from the commentary.

03 / WEB

Japanese-language Web & Social

Before a Japanese buyer agrees to meet, they look you up — in Japanese. What they find is usually either nothing, or a machine translation that reads as though no one checked it. Both cost you the meeting. We build the Japanese-language face of your business so that the search that follows your first approach works in your favour.

Who this is for

Companies whose Japanese-language presence is thin, automatically translated, or absent, and who are about to start approaching Japanese counterparts.

Diagram: search, social media and referrals lead to a Japanese-language website, whose form turns visits into enquiries

A site written for Japanese readers

Not translated at them. Structure, emphasis and proof points differ; what reassures a buyer here is not what reassures one at home.

Search and discoverability

The terms your category is actually searched with in Japanese, which are frequently not the translation of the English ones.

Social, at a realistic scale

A small, credible presence that supports the sales conversation, rather than a content programme nobody can sustain.

Materials that survive being forwarded

Most B2B decisions in Japan are made by people who were not in the meeting. Your documents have to work without you.

04 / LOCAL

Local Setup & Operations

Demand that arrives somewhere nobody is standing is wasted. Once the route is open, there is a receiving side to run: pricing that holds in this market, the paperwork buyers expect, and someone to answer the enquiry in Japanese within the day.

Who this is for

Companies whose first accounts are opening, and who need the operational side to exist before volume arrives.

Diagram: the overseas head office keeps a single line to a local base in Japan, which organises the local tasks and completes them one by one

Pricing built for this market

Landed cost, customary margins by channel, and the price point the category actually supports — worked backwards from the shelf, not forwards from your factory.

Customer-facing materials

Quotations, specifications and catalogues in the form Japanese counterparts expect to receive them.

Enquiry handling

A Japanese-language point of contact, so that response time does not become the reason you lose the account.

Day-to-day running

The routine that keeps the relationship alive between orders. In Japan this is not administrative overhead; it is most of the relationship.

Scope

What we take on,
and what stays with you.

Stated plainly, because the line matters more in a market you cannot see from your desk.

We

We handle

Market comparison and shortlisting. Channel and pricing structure. Partner sourcing, first contact and screening. Meeting design, execution and reporting. The Japanese-language side of your presence and your enquiries.

You

You retain

Product information and specifications. The final decision on markets and partners. Your price floor and supply capacity. Contracts, quality assurance, customs and import compliance. Shipping and after-sales obligations.

 !

Where the line falls

We are your commercial representative, not your legal or customs adviser. Entity formation, import compliance and contracts stay with you and your own professional advisers. We will tell you plainly, in your case, where that boundary sits.

Contact

Start with a conversation.

The first consultation is free and can be held online. If our honest reading is that Japan is not the right move for you now, we will say so.

Get in touch