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

Online Food Boom: Rakuten Walmart Alliance Goes Live

Rakuten to Covertly Cut Merchant Commission Rates?

Rakuten Focuses on Rakuten Ichiba as Sales Surge Again

Rakuten (4755) BUY Ahead of the First Half Results, Out on August 6th.

Rakuten (4755 JP) Mobile: Can It Succeed? A Study, Plus Insights from SoftBank's (9984 JP) EMobile

Rakuten (4755) Enough Is Enough, We Buy Shares Here

SoftBank (9984 JP) Mobile Sub-Brands Provide a Case Study for Rakuten (4755 JP) Mobile

Japan Telcos (SoftBank, 9984 JP; Docomo, 9437 JP; KDDI, 9433 JP) Pushed to Improve Pricing Practices

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

<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/31" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:31:1">Rakuten (4755 JP)</a> has started its own in-house logistics and fulfilment service for the 45,000 merchants using its Rakuten Ichiba online mall.
It also opened the Rakuten Express delivery service to third-party merchants for the first time.
The move has come late and Rakuten is starting small, making the service available only in parts of Chiba, but most existing Ichiba users will see it as a step in the right direction.
Direct fulfilment is essential to combat <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/409" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:409:1">Amazon's (AMZN US)</a> increasing dominance in Japan which is as much based on its peerlessly consistent fulfilment services as its price leadership and range.

Rakuten (4755 JP) has started its own in-house logistics and fulfilment service for the 45,000 merchants using its Rakuten Ichiba online mall.
It also opened the Rakuten Express delivery service to third-party merchants for the first time.
The move has come late and Rakuten is starting small, making the service available only in parts of Chiba, but most existing Ichiba users will see it as a step in the right direction.
Direct fulfilment is essential to combat Amazon's (AMZN US) increasing dominance in Japan which is as much based on its peerlessly consistent fulfilment services as its price leadership and range.

Rakuten

Rakuten Launches Own Delivery Service