Expert on Japan Retail and Consumer Markets, JapanConsuming

Michael Causton

Michael is co-founder and partner at JapanConsuming.

JapanConsuming is a specialist research firm producing intelligence on Japanese retail and consumer markets. Founded in 2000, JapanConsuming has become the leading provider of insights on Japanese retailers and consumer trends to retailers, brands, government agencies and investors. As well as a highly regarded monthly report on the market, JapanConsuming produces in-depth reports and seminars on retail sectors and consumer trends, as well as telephone consulting/meetings with investors. 

All of JapanConsuming's team are bilingual and bi-cultural, and the company's research sources are:

Direct meetings with retailers, wholesalers, distributors, trade body staff, govt., marketing firms, academics etc.
Govt. data
Trade association data
Trade Press across all consumer sectors
Unique Network of buyers/managers/marketing staff at retail, as well as wholesalers and trading firms.
Editors/Journalists at publishing houses and PR/Ad firms.


JapanConsuming was founded by Michael Causton and Roy Larke. 

Michael Causton set up and ran a consumer distribution business in Tokyo for 10 years and developed this into a business responsible for annual imports to Japan of several billion Yen, at the same time building up an inside knowledge of how Japanese distribution works and developing a network of contacts across the industry. Seeing the lack of quality market intelligence on Japanese markets, he co-founded JapanConsuming in 2000. He divides his time between Japan and Europe/US consulting for companies, governments and investors, including providing talks, seminars, and webinars as well as writing reports and books.

Expert on Japan Retail and Consumer Markets

Mercari – Physical Stores and Data Partnerships Strengthen Ecosystem Further

Mercari Recruits Retailers and Brands to Exploit Data & Expand Markets

Some Resistance to Cashless Payments in Japan

Z & LINE: Softbank Strikes Again in Digital Zaibatsu Battle for Hegemony

Mercari – Merpay Acquisition of Origami Pay Continues Cashless Consolidation

2020 High Conviction - A Mercarific Holiday Season to All

Real Insight on Japanese Consumer Markets

JapanConsuming

JapanConsuming is a specialist research firm producing intelligence on Japanese retail and consumer markets. Founded in 2000, JapanConsuming has become the leading provider of insights on Japanese retailers and consumer trends to retailers, brands, government agencies and investors. As well as a highly regarded monthly report on the market, JapanConsuming produces in-depth reports on retail sectors, seminars on key trends and telephone consulting to investors on trends and retailers.

JapanConsuming was founded by Michael Causton and Roy Larke. 

Equity Bottom-Up

When Origami, the only independent mobile payments provider, last month agreed to be bought by Mercari and merge its systems with Mercari’s own Merpay service, it was a sign of the growing necessity for scale in what is the fastest consolidating sector in Japan today.
Origami had scored a couple of major successes since launching in 2016 but, after the recent consolidation among the biggest players, it realised it just didn't have the budget to scale fast enough on its own. Mercari is in a similar situation but, even with Origami, Merpay remains one of the smaller players in the market.
Origami, Merpay and LINE are all too small to be able to afford the kind of aggressive incentives that PayPay has been offering and is a key reason why LINE agreed to a takeover by Z Holdings and Origami's merger with Merpay. Even then, this is not enough to take on the digital zaibatsu, Softbank/Z and Rakuten.
Last week's announcement of a tie-up between Mercari and NTT Docomo and the latter's determination not to lose out to Rakuten and Softbank/Z – it even tied with Amazon to avoid this – and the impossibility of Merpay being able to scale alone, suggests a full takeover of Merpay by NTT Docomo is on the cards.
If so, NTT Docomo has a chance to be one of the big 3 in cashless payments in Japan, alongside PayPay and Rakuten Pay (in the long-term).
The trouble is no one is going to be making money out of payments for a long time – unless PayPay stops offering all those juicy incentives.

When Origami, the only independent mobile payments provider, last month agreed to be bought by Mercari and merge its systems with Mercari’s own Merpay service, it was a sign of the growing necessity for scale in what is the fastest consolidating sector in Japan today.
Origami had scored a couple of major successes since launching in 2016 but, after the recent consolidation among the biggest players, it realised it just didn't have the budget to scale fast enough on its own. Mercari is in a similar situation but, even with Origami, Merpay remains one of the smaller players in the market.
Origami, Merpay and LINE are all too small to be able to afford the kind of aggressive incentives that PayPay has been offering and is a key reason why LINE agreed to a takeover by Z Holdings and Origami's merger with Merpay. Even then, this is not enough to take on the digital zaibatsu, Softbank/Z and Rakuten.
Last week's announcement of a tie-up between Mercari and NTT Docomo and the latter's determination not to lose out to Rakuten and Softbank/Z – it even tied with Amazon to avoid this – and the impossibility of Merpay being able to scale alone, suggests a full takeover of Merpay by NTT Docomo is on the cards.
If so, NTT Docomo has a chance to be one of the big 3 in cashless payments in Japan, alongside PayPay and Rakuten Pay (in the long-term).
The trouble is no one is going to be making money out of payments for a long time – unless PayPay stops offering all those juicy incentives.

Japan Payment Wars: NTT Docomo and Merpay/Origami to Attempt Catch up with PayPay and Rakuten