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

Smartkarma’s Week That Was in JP/​​​​​​​​​KR: -0.3% GDP Growth, Intel's Warnings, & The Next Joker?

Japan Fashion E-Commerce Review: More Competition Coming for ZOZO and Rakuten

Zozo: A Shooting Star Shooting Itself in the Foot

Zozo Competition: United Arrows Launches Rival to Zozo’s Wear App

Zozo: Looks Like There's a Dead Cat in This Bouncy Zozosuit

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/18379" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:18379:1">ZOZO's (3092 JP)</a> announced its FY18 results today, with operating profit down 21% despite sales increasing by 20.3%.What was more surprising was a clear sign of retreat and even some humility as the online fashion mall announced it would end its disastrous Zozoarigato campaign.Merchants are delighted but the damage has already been done and it will take time to repair merchant trust at a time when headwinds are building for Zozotown and the private brand is no longer expected to deliver growth as forecast.The company is much less optimistic about growth for the current year; it forecasts a 24.7% increase in OP to ¥32 billion but much slower GMV growth of just 13.6% to ¥367 billion. The private brand will shrink by 38.5% to just ¥1.7 billion.

ZOZO's (3092 JP) announced its FY18 results today, with operating profit down 21% despite sales increasing by 20.3%.What was more surprising was a clear sign of retreat and even some humility as the online fashion mall announced it would end its disastrous Zozoarigato campaign.Merchants are delighted but the damage has already been done and it will take time to repair merchant trust at a time when headwinds are building for Zozotown and the private brand is no longer expected to deliver growth as forecast.The company is much less optimistic about growth for the current year; it forecasts a 24.7% increase in OP to ¥32 billion but much slower GMV growth of just 13.6% to ¥367 billion. The private brand will shrink by 38.5% to just ¥1.7 billion.

ZOZO: No More Thank Yous and Less Profit Too

ZOZO Inc

ZOZO: No More Thank Yous and Less Profit Too