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

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Results & Revisions 31st July - Takeda, Yamato/SG, Seria, FP, Keyence, Dai-Ichi Sankyo

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Results & Revisions 3rd August - Capcom, K's, Kikkoman, USS, Eisai

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Results & Revisions 4th August - Sony, CTC, Kakaku.com, Daikin, Yamaha, Tokai Carbon

Yamato Launches Fitting Stations for Apparel E-Commerce

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

Delivering parcels from online stores has got a whole lot easier for Japan’s ever-valiant courier drivers. In the past six months, the rate of parcels needing to be redelivered has dropped by half.This figure will no doubt rise again once the crisis abates and people return to work, but the figure is falling longer-term as couriers, led by <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/yamato-holdings-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:2:1" rel="noopener">Yamato Holdings (9064 JP),</a>  and vendors all work on new solutions to alleviate the problem. The simplest is to avoid the issue altogether by just dropping parcels off regardless of whether there is anyone at home.Japan's improving efficiency and increasing number of delivery solutions are necessary given the increased flow of online orders and should help improve operating margins. In May alone, Yamato recorded receipt of 165 million packages, a 20% increase on 2019. In the first two months of FY2020, Yamato handled 320 million packages, up 16.3% overall.

Delivering parcels from online stores has got a whole lot easier for Japan’s ever-valiant courier drivers. In the past six months, the rate of parcels needing to be redelivered has dropped by half.This figure will no doubt rise again once the crisis abates and people return to work, but the figure is falling longer-term as couriers, led by Yamato Holdings (9064 JP),  and vendors all work on new solutions to alleviate the problem. The simplest is to avoid the issue altogether by just dropping parcels off regardless of whether there is anyone at home.Japan's improving efficiency and increasing number of delivery solutions are necessary given the increased flow of online orders and should help improve operating margins. In May alone, Yamato recorded receipt of 165 million packages, a 20% increase on 2019. In the first two months of FY2020, Yamato handled 320 million packages, up 16.3% overall.

Yamato Benefits as Failed E-Commerce Delivery Rates Cut by Half During Crisis