做日本市场如何从“开店”走向“经营”？乐天中国周洋将出席2026品牌供应链创新私董会

This article organizes key information on core issues from store setup to sustained operations for Chinese brands expanding into the Japanese market, and announces an upcoming industry expert sharing event. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Japan market basics: Located close to China, Japan features a mature retail ecosystem and strong consumer purchasing power, with its e-commerce market still growing. Japan's 2024 B2C e-commerce market size reached 26.12 trillion yen, and the e-commerce penetration rate for categories where Chinese brands hold advantages, such as home appliances, has exceeded 20%. However, quick market breakthroughs via low-price strategies or traffic volume do not work in Japan, as consumers have very high standards for product quality and customer service.

2. Expert sharing event details: The 2026 Brand Supply Chain Innovation Private Board Meeting will be held in Hangzhou on August 28. Yang Zhou, Chairman of Rakuten China, will attend to share insights on Japan market entry opportunities, entry barriers, and localized operation strategies. Readers interested in entering the Japanese market can gain hands-on practical experience through this event.

This article organizes information on consumer characteristics, channel opportunities and supporting resources for Chinese brands planning to enter or already operating in the Japanese market. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Consumer trends and user characteristics: Japan's e-commerce market is mature and still growing, with consumers having formed stable demand preferences. They set high standards for product quality, brand trust, service experience, logistics timeliness and after-sales support, and purchase decisions rely heavily on trust building. Low prices or traffic volume alone cannot sustain long-term growth.

2. Available resources for channel building: Rakuten has built an ecosystem covering e-commerce, finance and other sectors, with full-scenario connectivity via unified ID and points systems. It can provide settled brands with an existing user base, points system, marketing resources and data tools. It has also launched AI operation tools that cover product processing, customer service, data analysis and other links to cut operation and communication costs.

3. Tiered support policies: Rakuten will launch its "Thousand Brands Going Global" program in 2026, which provides tailored operation, marketing and logistics support for brands at the entry and growth stages respectively, to help brands build localized operation systems.

This article organizes market opportunities, potential risks and available support resources for cross-border sellers looking to enter the Japanese market. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Market growth opportunities: Japan is a major global e-commerce market, with a 2024 B2C e-commerce market size of 26.12 trillion yen. E-commerce penetration for categories where Chinese sellers hold advantages — including home appliances, furniture and general goods, and apparel and accessories — all exceed 20%, leaving ample room for market growth.

2. Key risk reminders: Japan's retail system is mature, so sellers cannot quickly scale by relying solely on low prices and traffic. Sellers must solve full-link localization issues covering product selection, brand expression, operation, marketing, customer service and supply chain fulfillment; sustained growth is very hard to achieve without addressing these issues.

3. Available support resources: Rakuten's 2026 "Thousand Brands Going Global" program offers differentiated support for sellers at entry and growth stages, and AI operation tools help cut operation costs. On the logistics side, it has optimized the China direct-to-Japan-warehouse model to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Yang Zhou will share more detailed growth paths at the Private Board Meeting on August 28.

This article organizes market demand, entry opportunities and insights on digital transformation for Chinese factories looking to expand into the Japanese market. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Product development and design requirements: Japanese consumers have high requirements for product quality, information transparency and after-sales service. Factories cannot compete on low prices alone; they need to adjust product development and design to align with local consumption habits and match local market demand.

2. Explorable business opportunities: Japan's e-commerce market is large and growing steadily, and e-commerce penetration for categories where Chinese factories already hold advantages — including home appliances, general goods and apparel — has exceeded 20%, offering sufficient market space. As of 2025, more than 1,000 overseas stores have settled on Rakuten, with both store count and sales maintaining continuous growth. Factories can leverage Rakuten's ecosystem to enter the market.

3. Insights for e-commerce and digital transformation: To go global, factories need to implement full-link localized operation. They can use the platform's mature AI digital tools to cut operation costs, and need to coordinate with the platform and supply chain service providers to align front-end operation with back-end fulfillment, in order to convert market opportunities into stable long-term business.

This article organizes industry development trends, core client pain points and business directions for service providers serving merchants expanding into Japan. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry development trends: Japan's e-commerce market continues to grow, and a growing number of Chinese merchants are entering the market. The industry has shifted from simply focusing on opening stores to pursuing long-term operational growth. Merchants are no longer satisfied with single-link services, and demand for full-link localized services has increased significantly. The industry requires tripartite collaborative development among platforms, brands and service providers.

2. Core client pain points: When entering the Japanese market, most Chinese merchants are unfamiliar with the local unique business ecosystem and consumption logic, and face pain points including high difficulty of localized operation, high communication and trial-and-error costs, high cross-border logistics costs paired with unstable timeliness, and lack of a complete operation system.

3. Directions for business solutions: Service providers can partner with Rakuten's "Thousand Brands Going Global" program to provide targeted services for merchants at different development stages, coordinate with platforms and supply chain players to offer full support from operation system building to fulfillment delivery, and capture industry growth opportunities.

This article organizes core merchant demands and provides reference experience for operation and merchant recruitment for platform operators developing cross-border go-global business. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core merchant demands for platforms: When expanding to Japan, Chinese merchants do not only need a sales channel — they more importantly need platforms to provide full-link support covering recruitment, operation, marketing and logistics, to help lower localization barriers, align with local consumer demand, cut operation costs, and deliver stable fulfillment support.

2. Reference innovative platform practices: Rakuten has built a multi-business ecosystem that connects users across all life scenarios via a unified ID and points system, provides merchants with multi-dimensional capabilities covering user access, marketing and data, and applies AI to all operation links to help merchants cut communication and operation costs.

3. Reference experience for recruitment and operation: Rakuten launched a phased "Thousand Brands Going Global" program that provides differentiated services for merchants at entry and growth stages, and collaborates with supply chain service providers to solve fulfillment issues. This tiered service plus ecosystem collaboration model effectively improves merchant retention and growth, and highlights the pitfall platforms should avoid: only providing traffic access without supporting services.

This article provides the latest industry trends, emerging issues and reference for innovative business models in the Japan go-global track for researchers studying the cross-border go-global industry. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Latest industry trends: Chinese brands expanding to Japan have now entered a new phase, shifting from the early focus on whether they can successfully open a store to whether they can achieve sustained long-term growth. Japan's mature market demands stronger brand localization capabilities, and the industry is shifting from single-channel sales to ecosystem-based operation and full-link collaborative development.

2. New emerging industry issues: Most Chinese brands lack understanding of Japan's unique business ecosystem and consumption logic, and have insufficient full-link localization capabilities. Issues including high operation and trial-and-error costs, and unstable logistics fulfillment, have become core barriers constraining long-term growth for Chinese brands in the Japanese market.

3. New business models worth studying: The ecosystem empowerment plus phased support model explored by Rakuten leverages the platform's own multi-business ecosystem to empower merchants, provides differentiated support for merchants at different development stages, and collaborates with supply chain service providers to solve fulfillment issues. This tripartite collaborative model of platform + brand + supply chain is a new exploration in the cross-border go-global space and carries high research value.