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

Fashion Retailing 2020-21: Leading Brands Suffer Worst Year in Modern History

Japan's Apparel/Fashion Sector Big Review: Momentum Builds for Full Recovery

Fashion E-Commerce Has Watershed Year in 2020

Adastria: Japan's “Apparel Market to Shrink by 30% in Next 6 Years”

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. 

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Japan Textiles, apparel and luxury goods / Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Fashion retailers continue to rely on third-party platforms, especially <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/zozo-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:18379:1" rel="noopener">ZOZO Inc (3092 JP),</a> to sell online but the scale of investment in direct mobile and web is growing. With Baycrews alone seeing customers that shop both online and in stores hitting 52% of all customers and spending 3.7 times more than store-only customers, it is not hard to see why.While there is no likelihood of direct sales taking significant share from the major online malls anytime soon, it is also true that the biggest competitive threat to the big three malls plus Zozo isn't another mall but the determination of fashion retailers and brands to wrest more control of online. On advantage they do have is experience of running retail stores and re opening more stores branded with the online shop name to increase awareness and cross-use.With one fashion retailer seeing the average annual purchase value of cross-use users 3.7 times that of store-only users, an astonishingly high difference, it is no surprise there is momentum to invest more in direct online sales.

Fashion retailers continue to rely on third-party platforms, especially ZOZO Inc (3092 JP), to sell online but the scale of investment in direct mobile and web is growing. With Baycrews alone seeing customers that shop both online and in stores hitting 52% of all customers and spending 3.7 times more than store-only customers, it is not hard to see why.While there is no likelihood of direct sales taking significant share from the major online malls anytime soon, it is also true that the biggest competitive threat to the big three malls plus Zozo isn't another mall but the determination of fashion retailers and brands to wrest more control of online. On advantage they do have is experience of running retail stores and re opening more stores branded with the online shop name to increase awareness and cross-use.With one fashion retailer seeing the average annual purchase value of cross-use users 3.7 times that of store-only users, an astonishingly high difference, it is no surprise there is momentum to invest more in direct online sales.

Japanese Fashion Retailers Advance Online Investment