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

Sanyo Shokai Signs Joint Venture with Spanish Brand Ecolaf but It Won't Stop the Rot

Big Apparel in Trouble: Onward to Close 1,400 Stores

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

The major Japanese apparel firms continue to struggle.
They face the twin problems of declining apparel sales for their middle market brands and the erosion of apparel sales in department stores – to which they remain overly dependent.
In addition, department stores are increasingly taking over sales space for their own purposes, space that used to be controlled by these same apparel firms.
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/12308" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:12308:1">Sanyo Shokai (8011 JP)</a> is one of the worst afflicted:
<ul class="">
<li>It has tried many times to fix its problems through new brands and foreign franchises but none have worked.</li>
<li>Then two years ago it lost the license for the Burberry brand, a license that had contributed around 45% of its turnover.</li>
<li>At the time it said it would recover these lost sales in 18 months. Instead, its fortunes have worsened. Sales have fallen by almost 50%, alongside two straight years of losses with another expected this year too.</li>
<li>Its latest move is to launch brands for the shopping centre market. The likely failure of these brands will just add further to Sanyo's dim prospects.</li>
<li>Not surprisingly, it has just announced a voluntary redundancy programme, asking 30% of its employees to take the package.</li>
</ul>

The major Japanese apparel firms continue to struggle.
They face the twin problems of declining apparel sales for their middle market brands and the erosion of apparel sales in department stores – to which they remain overly dependent.
In addition, department stores are increasingly taking over sales space for their own purposes, space that used to be controlled by these same apparel firms.
Sanyo Shokai (8011 JP) is one of the worst afflicted:

It has tried many times to fix its problems through new brands and foreign franchises but none have worked.
Then two years ago it lost the license for the Burberry brand, a license that had contributed around 45% of its turnover.
At the time it said it would recover these lost sales in 18 months. Instead, its fortunes have worsened. Sales have fallen by almost 50%, alongside two straight years of losses with another expected this year too.
Its latest move is to launch brands for the shopping centre market. The likely failure of these brands will just add further to Sanyo's dim prospects.
Not surprisingly, it has just announced a voluntary redundancy programme, asking 30% of its employees to take the package.


Sanyo Shokai Launches New Brands: Too Little Too Late with Further Decline to Come