Uncovering the Hidden Goldmine: How to Start Selling on Amazon Japan with Gary Huang

Uncovering the Hidden Goldmine: How to Start Selling on Amazon Japan with Gary Huang Speaker 1: At the same time, it was about 2007-2008, I wanted to go multi-channel and then Amazon at that time was offering third-party sellers to sell onto the platform. So I did start selling on Amazon, but they did not have FBA yet. So that didn't exist. So I was literally just like, literally picking and packing. And then I hired like a part-time high school student and she would come in after school. She would help like, you know, package up the shoes and, you know, put the shipping labels. We had like a thermal printer. Those were kind of like the good old days, like 2005 to 2008. So that's how I got started in e-commerce. Unknown Speaker: Welcome fellow entrepreneurs to the Amazon Sellers School podcast where we talk about Amazon and how you can use it to build an e-commerce empire, a side hustle, and anything in between. And now your host, Todd Welch. Speaker 2: What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Amazon Seller School. I've got Gary Huang on today, and we're going to be diving into Starting to sell in Amazon Japan, which is pretty cool. I'm excited for this one because I already sell, as you know, in the United States and Canada, a little bit in Mexico, and I've been interested in Japan, and now I've found someone who actually lives in Japan and is an expert at selling in Japan, helping people sell in Japan. Really looking forward to this. So, Gary, I appreciate you coming on the show. Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Todd. Konnichiwa. Greetings from Tokyo, Japan, everybody. It's great to be here. Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. Getting up nice and early for us at 6.30 a.m. Speaker 1: They say Japan is the land of the rising sun, and I do see the sun rising outside right now. But I'm super excited to be here and share some value about selling in Japan for Amazon sellers. Speaker 2: Yeah, I usually get up at 5 a.m., 5.30 myself, you know, and have some coffee, read the Bible a little bit and stuff like that. So do you normally get up that early? Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a similar routine. When I can, I try to get up early at 5, have some quiet time, you know, get my day centered. Yeah, I try to but, you know, it's, you know, being a A father and, you know, husband, sometimes with family, you know, there's some issues that we have to take care of at night, but it's all good. Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't always make it as well myself. It depends how late I was up the night before, depending on what's going on. But like I said, I've got a one-year-old right now, but thankfully she's sleeping through the night very well. But, you know, sometimes she likes to keep us up a little longer than others. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. I have a six-year-old, so sometimes we gotta do the bedtime routine and all that good stuff. And I try to finish up some work late at night as well. So yeah, doing our best here. Speaker 2: Absolutely. All right, well, I've got a bio here for you, a little bit about your background that I'm gonna go through, and then we can dive into and tell us a little bit more about how you got over to Tokyo, I guess, for one. And how you got into selling on Amazon, things like that. But real quick here, so Gary is an e-commerce and supply chain expert with over 15 years of experience, now based in Tokyo. He's renowned for guiding Amazon sellers into the Japanese market with his Six Bridges to Selling in Japan framework. As the founder of the Seven Figure Seller Summit and leader of the Tokyo Ecom and Amazon Sellers Meetup Group, Gary has significantly influenced global e-commerce. He's fluent in Mandarin, which is awesome. He has launched multiple private label brands and has been featured in major industry outlets. Previously, he's founded 8020 Sourcing and chaired the Supply Chain Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai advocating on international trade issues. Lots of stuff there in your background, Gary, so I guess why don't we start and tell us a little bit about where you're originally from and how you ended up in Japan. Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and my family heritage, my parents are originally from China, from mainland China, and then they emigrated to the States in the late 70s. And so I was born and raised in LA. I went to school at USC, University of Southern California, fight on Trojans. And my background is kind of the intersection of e-commerce and sourcing and supply chain, like what you highlighted. So there's been a couple of major chapters in my life. I'll try to summarize it. I got started in the whole online Ecosystem with basically the first job out of college, I was actually a temp, a contractor at Google up in Mountain View. This was very early pre-IPO in 2004. So I wasn't a full-time employee. I was trying to get to full-time and I don't have no technical background. I was working in their AdWords, like online editorial department. So I was literally like reviewing online ads back in 2004 and Yeah, it was like kind of like the early, early days of AdWords, right? If you some of you guys remember, and literally I would just be approving and disapproving like those little three-line ads. So like for, you know, family safe, non-family safe, porn, there's a whole like everything like A lot of stuff you don't want to see, but everything was there. But through that experience, unfortunately, I did not get the gig at Google. If I did get the gig pre-IPO, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today. I probably wouldn't be talking to you guys. So maybe that's a good thing. I'm sure the perfect path was there already for me. But I took that setback, quote-unquote failure, moved back home. With my mom in LA and I took that experience, I'm kind of light bulb went off because I saw, hey, all these people are advertising for like Tahitian nani juice, like these health supplements. Online poker was a big thing. And I'm like, hey, you know, maybe there's something here with this whole e-com thing. And I kind of had an entrepreneurial, you know, feel because my mom, she's a retired women's fashion designer. So she had her own clothing line. And she, you know, she, so for our family background, we came from an entrepreneurial background as well. So I'm like, okay, let me try selling online. And back then this was 2000. Five, eBay was big back then. As some of you guys remember, eBay was the biggest online platform. So I started learning about eBay. I would go to like those eBay live conventions. I don't know, like Todd, have you ever sold on eBay or? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's where I kind of got my start is on eBay. Nothing huge, but you know, just started selling stuff around the house and then I was selling these edge sheets that I imported for a while. Yeah, that's where I got started. Speaker 1: Interesting. Okay. So a little like you, I did some arbitrage. So I used to drive to estate sales like to Beverly Hills, Brentwood, like where all the rich people lived in LA. Early Saturday morning, you know, I would hunt Craigslist like the night before and I would always be the first person there to get like the first picking of the best stuff. So like all the designer label stuff and you know, and then, you know, I would haggle with them. And then after that, I would go, go back. I'll take pictures. I will put them on eBay. So anyways, that's how I got started on e-com. I've literally like, I used to do a whole bunch of like designer clothing and like, you know, because my mom had comes from a fashion background. So like, I mean, this is like, Different to what I'm doing today, but that's where I learned all the meticulousness of product photography, listing descriptions, and also I started building my first private label brand, selling women's shoes, because one of my family friends was an importer from China for women's shoes. So these were very niche type of Mary Jane shoes, not stuff you would just go into Target, you can buy, right? So I was sold to these niche audience of people into Rockabilly and Like punk and we had like, you know, cherry like on shoes and stuff like that. So anyways, I built a like a decent sized business. It wasn't huge. You know, we did like six figures and you know, I was doing self-fulfillment driving to the US Post Office, you know, you know, picking packing myself. So anyways, that's how I got started in e-commerce. That's kind of like the first chapter. Yeah, that was before the whole Amazon thing. So at that time I was selling on eBay Yeah, it was on eBay first, and then we had the Yahoo stores. I don't know if you remember that. Yahoo stores were like the precursor to Shopify, right? So they were like templated. You could build out your store. So I had my online shoe store. And for those of you guys that watch sitcoms in the 80s and 90s, I would joke like I was like the online Al Bundy from Married with Children. I was like an online shoe salesman for women's shoes. Speaker 2: The downfall of Yahoo is amazing. They made so many bad calls over the years because they owned everything. They were the rulers of the internet. Speaker 1: They were the precursor to Google. They had the big search engine before Google came in. Yeah, even the online search, like they had Overture. That was the precursor to AdWords. I mean, like the search-based, you know, the auction bidding. But yeah, that was kind of the first chapter. Speaker 2: Very nice. Yeah, never sold on any Yahoo stores or anything like that, but eBay and Craigslist as well is where I kind of got my start. Speaker 1: And then in 2008, I made a career shift. You know, the global financial crisis was hitting, you know, sales were taking a hit, and at the same time, I've always had the itch to go to Asia. Like in college, I did study abroad in Beijing. I did a summer internship in Shanghai. In Shanghai back then, it was kind of like, you know, the New York City of Asia, you know, super international, super cosmopolitan, very entrepreneurial, very fast paced, and things were cheap. And, you know, going out was like a lot of fun. I'm like, I kind of want to, you know, make a career switch. And I also, I majored in East Asian languages, Chinese minor. So, you know, I learned Chinese and I grew up speaking Chinese at home. So I, you know, that was like the fundamentals. But anyways, like I really want to make a career shift. I just remember when I was like packing up the shoes, I was listening to the radio, like NPR, they were talking about, you know, back then Beijing Olympics 2008. I'm like, hey, you know, I want, I know that stuff. I really want to get into it. So long story short, I made a A switch, I made a move. So I moved out to Shanghai summer of 2008 before Beijing Olympics. I had one really good friend that was working in Shanghai. He let me crash on his couch. And while I try to get settled, I just gave myself, hey, I gave myself, I think it was three months, okay, three months to try to make it in Shanghai, right, to find a job, to see if I can get something. If I don't get it, that's fine. You know, I'll just go back to LA. I did my best. No regrets. Otherwise, I kind of felt like I would always regret it, like if I never made the new move. To Asia to try, I would always regret it because I felt like I wasn't really living up to my gifts and my potential because I could speak Chinese, right? So long story short, I was super fortunate. I found a job with a small consulting company that did sourcing. So the boss was a USC alumni of our school, but he was an older, more experienced guy, like in his late 50s. So I learned so much from him, you know, sourcing, working with Chinese factories, and the clients, he's Brazilian Chinese, so ethnically, you know, born and raised in Brazil, you know, ethnically Chinese, and he was like working in Asia for like multinational companies, etc. So we would help Brazilian clients Fine Chinese supplier. So all sorts of products from like auto parts to solar water heaters to exercise bikes for gyms, you name it, right? Umbrella. So literally I've visited hundreds of Chinese factories, you know, did like all the sourcing, the negotiation, looking out for the good, the bad, the ugly. Yeah. So that, that's kind of the second chapter of my life starting from 2008 until 2019, I lived and worked in Shanghai and met my wife. Super blessed I met her in Shanghai. We got married in 2015. And then about 2016, I was listening to these podcasts in Shanghai, in my apartment, and I heard about the Amazon FBA thing. I don't know when you got started, but it was around 2015. I was listening to the 2014, yeah, around that time, so I would listen to Scott Volker, The Amazing Seller, you know, I was following Jungle Scout, yeah, Steve Chu, My Wife Quit Her Job and all that stuff. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I kind of put two and two together. I'm like, because I had stopped my My previous eBay business, because it was just very difficult to run remotely. There wasn't, you know, FBA at the time, but I'm like, hey, you know, I can run this from, from Shanghai, right? Because I'm on the ground. I know how to do the sourcing. I mean, I could literally hop on the train from Shanghai, be at the factory in like an hour and a half. Right. And then I started getting onto Amazon and selling FBA. So I had a business partner at the time. And then the first project we launched, first product we launched on Amazon FBA at the time was Apple Watch bands. So that was when you remember Apple Watch first launched. And then we created like different bands and different materials, different colors, because Apple only launched like, I think, 12 bands at the time. Right. And then they had Silicon, they had that really expensive, like, The Hermes leather and they had like that Milanese one that was like 150 bucks. So we sold like, you know, like nylon, like NATO bands. So I don't know if you're, are you a watch guy, Todd? Speaker 2: Yeah, I got my Garmin. Speaker 1: Nice. Okay. So smartwatch. Yeah. So anyways, like we kind of borrowed from like, you know, watch enthusiasts, like, you know, those NATO bands, and then we created like Apple watch NATO bands. So we put them on Amazon FBA and One of the hacks that we did to get more sales is my business partner who's based in LA, he was very well-connected in the tech news industry. One of his friends worked for InGadget. At the time, he was one of the big Apple reporter guys. They covered us in InGadget, and then they linked our Amazon page, and the sales just spiked through the roof, and we just sold out. Man, it's going crazy, you know. So that was like, you know, like almost like influencer, like, you know, external traffic marketing back in the day. This was like 2016. Yeah. So anyways, that So throughout the years, so eventually my business partner and I at the time, we went our separate ways because he wanted to go a different route. And then I launched a number of other private label products in like a whole bunch of different industries. And then, yeah, so that's the second chapter. And then the third chapter was 2018 when my wife and I, we got pregnant with our son, right? He's six now. So this was like six and a half years, almost seven years ago, right? And at that time, when I started selling on Amazon, at the same time, I created a blog called 8020 Sourcing, which is still up to date. And it's really designed to share about sourcing best practices for For Amazon sellers to e-commerce business owners. So coming from the perspective of sourcing professional with like over a decade experience on the ground, I would like blog about all of these, you know, tricks of the trade, et cetera. And I was invited to speak at a number of conferences, including the ones in Hong Kong. So I would fly to Hong Kong like twice a year at the Global Sources Summit where I would be one of the speakers, right, to talk about sourcing best practice, et cetera. But at the same time, I was listening in to the other speakers because I wanted to learn myself. So 2018, my wife was expecting, I couldn't go to Hong Kong anymore. So I had like the inspiration, why not invite these seven figure sellers to teach me online and to teach everyone else online. So that was the genesis. That was like the beginning of the online seven figure seller summit. So it's really designed to help online sellers like you and me and everyone else listening today to grow scale and exit their businesses. Um, so fast forward to today, we've run, um, nine online seven figure seller summits. Um, we usually get about 1500 to about 2000 people that get the free pass. And, um. Yeah, we won a couple of awards. We were voted favorite Amazon conference in the world two times in a row. Yeah. So that's kind of like the third chapter. And sorry, I'm just going through this. Interrupt me anytime, Todd. Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely. Speaker 1: The fourth chapter, why am I in Japan? I started that and then it was about 2019, end of 2019, before the big pandemic was going to hit us. Nobody knew what was going to happen. My wife and I were raising our son, Harrison, and he was about a one-year-old. We were trying to make a decision. Should we stay in Shanghai or should we move to the States where my We're trying to make a decision for our family. Where do we want to raise our son? We were still on the fence. It was about November of 2019. It was getting cold. It was just past Thanksgiving. We're like, okay, let's take a trip somewhere warm first. It was late November of 2019. We took a trip to Southeast Asia. Talking about places that are warm, like where you are, Todd. So we went to Thailand. So and we went to Vietnam, but we didn't know that the pandemic was just like literally just starting to hit China at that time. This was late November. Right. So as we were traveling, The news broke out and the outbreak was starting. I ran an online summit. I remember it was in Da Nang in Vietnam. I was running it in between. We were traveling from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to Da Nang, kind of like digital nomad style with our one-year-olds. And we were like, OK, China doesn't look like a good place to go back right now. Let's wait it out. So we looked at the map. Where should we go? Right. And we're like, Japan. We always like to travel to Japan. Right. My wife and I used to go like twice a year just for the food and the culture. And people are very nice. It's safe. It's clean. So we're like, okay, let's look at Okinawa. Okinawa is like pretty close. You know, we were like diverting through Hong Kong and let's just go there, right? So, you know, as an American, you know, we can go, like, visa-free for 90 days, right? And my wife, who's Chinese, she had already, like, a visa for Japan, coincidentally or, you know, fortunately, right? So, like, okay, with our baby, with our son, one-year-old. So we flew out to Okinawa with the intention of waiting this thing out, right? Nobody knew what was going to happen. So we ended up staying in Japan. This was five years ago. This was January, late January of 2020, like, almost five years to the day. Right. And. So I ended up just, we, we just, we ended up staying in, in Okinawa. If you're wondering, like, what about the visa? Like, what did you do? We, we were like the only tourists remaining, like, on a tourist visa during the pandemic, because fortunately, the Japanese immigration government, they allowed, like, an exemption, an extension for any foreign, foreigners that had difficulty returning to their home countries because of COVID, which was the case for us, obviously. They allowed an extension. So what we did is we literally lived like 90 days at a time. And every like 60 days, we would go to the immigration office in Okinawa and plead our case and explain the situation. And, you know, thank God, you know, every time we got the visa stamp extension. Right. So literally, we got that extension, I think like 10 times. We stayed in Okinawa for about Two and a half years and I was very fortunate. I was able to run my business remotely, right? All I, I had my laptop. I had like all my, you know, gear. Um, and my son was like one and you know, my wife, she did all the heavy lifting with like the childcare and I had daddy duty as well. Um, so long story short, I was doing like continuous, like the online events and you know, at that time there was everything offline stopped. Right? So like everything was done online. So anyways, um, That's how we got started in Japan, and we ended up really enjoying Japan. And then I'm like, hey, while I'm here, let me try selling on Amazon Japan. And no, I'm not fluent in Japanese. I mean, I came into Japan not really knowing Japanese, right? And then I found ways that I can sell on Japan, even if I don't speak Japanese. And we can talk a little bit about that as well, right? So I ended up selling A product in Japan and started getting traction and I ended up being like the number one seller of that product in the toy space because I just noticed like, hey, there's a need for this. And it was, you know, pandemic time. And yeah, I've talked about the product before. It's actually like it's a kite, right? Because, you know, kites, you know, it was great outdoor activity during COVID because it's away from screen time, right? And culturally, Japan has like certain times of year where people, it's a thing, like they go out and fly kites, right? And then I was able to find, you know, I sourced the product from China, import it into Japan, sent it to myself, sent it to Japanese FBA, listed it online, Amazon Seller Central Japan. We can talk more about this. Back end, everything is in English, right? I mean, you have to get the listing translated, but long story short, I was able to do it. Even at the time, I didn't know any Japanese. I know some Japanese now, but I'm not fluent. I have a team member, she's Japanese, that helps. But you're able to sell in Japan. If I'm able to sell in Japan, I know a lot of you guys out there can do it too. So anyways, that's where we are today. And we ended up, why are we in Tokyo? After the pandemic ended, It wasn't a smooth transition. We couldn't get like a visa extension because we're on a tourist visa. So like the immigration officers said very politely, you know, pandemic is coming to an end. You need to find a way to To get out of here, basically. So we wanted to stay in Japan because, you know, we liked the culture and, you know, we're kind of getting settled and, you know, the business, you know, we were getting traction. So I ended up starting a company in Japan, but I couldn't start the company while I was on a tourist visa. So we ended up going to Thailand, to Bangkok again, because at that time it was late 2022. China, Shanghai, we couldn't go back because they were getting hit with like the worst COVID at that time, as some of you guys remember. You know, like my in-laws, they were like quarantined in their house for like, I think, 60 days. They couldn't even go out of their apartment in Shanghai. And they had a dog. They couldn't even like, they had to like secretly sneak out to walk their dog at night. That's how severe it was, right? So we couldn't go back to Shanghai, obviously. So we ended up going down to Thailand, which opened their borders. This was late 2022. So, you know, with our son, he was about Three years old at the time. So like the first daycare that he got was in Bangkok. It was like international daycare. And then he picked up some Thai, which is kind of cool. Long story short, we were very fortunate. We were able to get the business set up in Japan, and then we decided to move to Tokyo for business reasons, just because there's more business to be done with the partners. I work with Japanese agencies, service providers, and sellers, and also setting up the Tokyo meetups, as well as education for our son, more school options in Tokyo. Speaker 2: Okay. All right. So they eventually gave you a permanent residence or something? Speaker 1: No, we don't have permanent residence, but you know, being on a visa, um, um, having a business, I was able to get a manager visa. So I'm on a business manager visa. So it's like a working visa. And then they also provide the visa for our family. So yeah, so that's how we got everything. Speaker 2: Okay. Awesome. Very nice. I love that. That's a, an amazing, You know, journey to get to where you are. It's always interesting to see how people end up. Hey, Amazon sellers. Tired of losing money on storage and shipping fees? Well, Amazon Storage Pros is here to take the headache out of logistics. We manage everything from inventory and creating efficient shipping plans to working with 3PLs and Amazon's AWD so that you can focus on growing your business. Start with a free storage cost audit and discover exactly where you're overspending and how to fix it. Don't let logistics eat into your profits. Visit AmazonStoragePros.com. That's AmazonStoragePros.com to get your free storage cost audit and start saving today. And now, back to the show. Certain positions and everything that you go through, you know, especially when you're you're younger, you know, and you haven't experienced. All of the different seasons of life and how things change. You just, you know, you're young and you're like, okay, I'm going to be a computer programmer and I'm going to work here or there or whatever. And then life, you know, sometimes takes you on a journey. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Speaker 2: So yeah, that's an awesome background for sure. So I appreciate you sharing all that. You've got some slides and we can dive into people selling in Japan. If you want to go ahead and share your screen. For anybody that is listening, we're going to describe anything that's visual and stuff like that and really dive into it. Like I said in the beginning, I don't sell in Japan myself. But, you know, SmartScout just released some data claiming that Japan is possibly the second largest market at this point. I believe the U.S. was like $454 billion and Japan is something like $54 billion, I believe it said. So, Japan is definitely growing and growing fast in a market that I'm interested in. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually news to me because at the time of this, when I put together this presentation, I mean this presentation, I did it like last year, right? Japan's ranked number four, and Germany, so number one biggest Amazon marketplace is the US, obviously. Number two is Germany, three is UK, and four was Japan. So I would love to see that data from SmartScale. So Scott, if you're listening, please send it over. I would love to see it. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I emailed it to you, and we can actually We'll throw it in the show notes, a link to it as well, but he just says, Amazon doesn't disclose the revenue of each of the international markets. They're small compared to the US, but they put together the numbers and it shows United States, 433 billion, Japan, 555 billion, Germany, 45 billion, United Kingdom, 39 billion, and then Canada, 17 billion, and on down from there, Italy, France, Spain, Mexico, India, Australia. Speaker 1: How much was Germany? Speaker 2: Germany is at $45 billion. So supposedly, assuming these numbers are correct, Japan has the second highest revenue of an Amazon marketplace. Speaker 1: All right. Cool. I'll take a look at that. All right. So let's get into it. How should we do this, Todd? Do you want to prompt me with some questions or should I just Let's talk over the slides. How should we do this? Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead and get started and I'll jump in with any questions and things like that as we go along. Speaker 1: I feel that a lot of sellers, they just don't know about Japan or they don't even think about Japan. And when sellers are selling, they're thinking about expansion. Usually, if they're selling to the US, they go to Canada or Mexico first. So I kind of wanted to share first why sellers should sell to Amazon Japan. One reason, besides the size of the market, is if you look at shipping, because everyone knows like, you know, the Suez Canal, like that whole scenario with the pirates attacking container ships in the canal, this is affecting shipping prices, right? And, you know, it's causing delays, like, you know, if you're shipping to Europe, you know, from Asia, if you're manufacturing in Asia, you know, if you're shipping a product, let's say you're selling in EU, you're probably shipping to Germany, right? And previously, you know, before this whole like supply chain scenario, you would go take the shortcut through the Suez Canal. So if you guys are looking at the screen, you can see here. But now, you know, given that ongoing thing, and this has been going on for some time. And even now, they still haven't straightened it out. I mean, the whole geopolitical thing. I mean, I think that's the other big thing, you know, talking about, you know, like politics aside, you know, with the new tariffs from President Trump, Sourcing from China, sourcing from these countries in the U.S., you're going to get hit with more and more tariffs and higher cost increases. On the shipping side, for selling into Japan, Japan has very super efficient logistics. It doesn't take a geography genius to figure this out. If you guys can see the map, People know where China is. It's in Asia. And people know where the U.S. is, which is very far away across the Pacific. But most people don't realize how close Japan is to China. Japan is literally China's neighbor. So if you look at the time it takes to ship a container from China to the U.S., which is about over a month, plus delays, plus backlogs, etc. And if you ship it from China to Japan, literally a week. Speaker 2: I just measured it real quick. I just measured it on Google Maps. And from Tokyo to Shanghai is just over a thousand miles. Away, which is the same as say LA to Austin, Texas. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. LA to Austin, right? So that's like halfway across the country. And so you're going to get your products a lot faster if you're selling in Japan. And when I was, um, I was speaking with, uh, an eight figure seller, Brandon Young, you know, I was sharing about Japan. This was kind of like a light bulb moment because in terms of inventory and cash flow, because everyone knows that, you know, Amazon is really a cash flow business, right? You got to, you know, spend more money, buy more inventory. As you scale, you can actually buy less inventory selling into Japan, turn it over faster and ship it faster in, right? So rather than, let's say for the US, if you're stocking two, three months, Inventory per shipment for Japan, you could cut that down significantly, let's say to like a month or even less, depending on how you want to do it. So that frees up your cashflow. So for the more experienced sellers, immediately that would be a huge benefit, right? Because you're trying to scale, right? So that's number one. The selling to Japan, you have more efficient logistics, you can place smaller orders, you can turn it over faster, it will free up your cashflow. Okay. Speaker 2: Yeah, 7 to 10 days. I mean, that's basically like sending a pallet from Florida to Seattle or something like that. Usually, that's about 5 to 10 days to send a pallet across the United States. Speaker 1: Yes, yes. So, it's a lot faster and it's a lot cheaper too. Because the distance is shorter, right? So that's the first reason. The second reason, and this slide is now outdated because Todd corrected me, but the news is even better because previously Japan was the fourth biggest Amazon marketplace in the world. And if this new data is correct, Japan is now number two. So the good news about Japan is Amazon Amazon is the most popular online shopping website in Japan. So just like it is in the States, there's Amazon Prime in Tokyo. So I literally, you know, I can buy anything from like, you know, pet supplies for our guinea pig to like a new TV or, you know, clothes. I mean, you name it, right? They even sell alcohol on Amazon Japan, which is a big no-no, I know in the States, right? Yeah, you can order like booze. I mean, just saying, right? Yeah. So yeah, Japan, so the customers, the people in Japan, they're used to shopping online. Like since COVID, there's been a huge spike in online shopping. E-com penetration rate is 74%, 93 million online. Most people don't realize this. The population of Japan is 126 million people. It's double the population of the UK. And it's the fourth largest GDP economy in the world. And e-commerce is still forecast to grow about 6% in Japan. So Japan is a big market. But what people don't realize is there's less competition in Amazon Japan, and there's weaker competition in Amazon Japan. So in this study, In terms of active Amazon marketplace sellers, Japan is ranked number eight in the number of sellers. And then there's actually more sellers selling in smaller markets like Italy, France, India, Spain. Yeah, there's actually more people selling in Italy and Italy is like a pretty small market compared to Japan. So that's kind of like, you know, the whole blue ocean, you know, like thing, right? I mean, it's not like a red ocean, like, You know, obviously the States is the biggest market, but there's the most sellers, right? But if you're thinking like contrarian, hey, maybe I can put my product in a smaller market with less competitors. So it's not like a bloodbath, right? It's a blue ocean, if that makes sense. And then also the competition is a lot less sophisticated in Japan, like in terms of, let's say, The product images, a lot of the bestsellers even today on Amazon Japan, they only have two images. They're not maximizing everything, all the tools you have on Amazon with all the listings, with the A-plus content, with all of the sponsor brand video, ads. There's still a lot of opportunity because the competition is not as sophisticated in Japan yet. Right. As some of these other markets. And also in terms of the translations, there's a lot of, there's like who's selling in Japan. It's, it's roughly about half Japanese sellers and half Chinese sellers. And for the Chinese sellers, they're competing mainly on price. So the translations may not be as localized. They're a little crude, not done super well. So there's still room to sell in Japan right now. And I'll show you some more data. Okay. Speaker 2: Very nice. Yeah, and I just compared it to the USA. So USA is 346 million people. So Japan is about 35-36% of the size of the USA. Speaker 1: It's very big. And Tokyo is like a huge metropolis. And like, I think like a fourth or a third of the people all live in Tokyo, just because like, all the companies are here, all the jobs are here, all of, you know, like Tokyo is like one of the, it's like the most popular tourist destination in the world, right? We see tourists like, every day I hear like, 12 different languages being spoken outside my office in Tokyo, Shibuya. So yeah, it's super popular. Yeah, so basically Japan's the fourth, it's like The big secret about selling on Amazon is the marketplace nobody's selling in. Just to give you guys an idea of the lack of competition, I took side-by-side, face-off comparison for yoga mats. Everyone knows yoga mats, it's a super-saturated product, don't sell yoga mats. That's true for the US, but in Japan, that's not necessarily the case. Side-by-side comparison on the left, Amazon.com US, search term, Thick Yoga Mat, the number one bestseller. It has 75,632 reviews, 4.6 stars, right? And then on the right side, the Japanese bestseller, Thick Yoga Mat, only has 373 reviews, right? 3.9 stars. And if you're wondering, do Japanese people do yoga? Yes, Japanese people do yoga as well. They have yoga studios. The market size may not be as big, but there's still a lot of opportunities that you might be surprised about. Selling in Japan. OK. And then another big thing about selling in Japan that's a plus is lower PPC. Right. So. It's just economics, right? There's less sellers, there's less competition, there's less people bidding for keywords, right? We're seeing PPC as low as 29 cents a click, and I think people will be pleasantly surprised, right? Obviously, you have to translate and localize everything, but yeah. And there's also lower FBA fees in Japan. Like last year, there was a whole new round of fees. So, Scott, come on a webinar. They broke it down for us very, very nicely. But long story short, in Japan, at the time of this presentation, there was no inbound placement fees. Low inventory fees aren't hit until later. Age inventory surcharge, that isn't until later. It's less as well. So stacking up, there's less fees in Japan. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean, just the low inventory fee itself there, Is $0.04 to $0.20 compared to $0.32 to $1.11 in the U.S.? Speaker 1: This was last year. So there may have been some adjustments. On the whole, I mean, we know the trend. The fees are a lot lower. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Now, I'm assuming you're sending everything into AWD over there, or I'm sorry, FBA over there. They don't have anything like AWD. Speaker 1: They don't have AWD yet. But yeah, we're sending everything to FBA. And some people use 3PLs here in Japan. And so that's another option as well. But just on the whole, like Japan is not as big as the US. You're not going to have to ship it like really far because Japan is just like a chain of islands. So besides like Okinawa, which is like the southern island that it takes a little longer to ship down there, and Hokkaido, which is in the north, pretty much like the main island of Japan. It's not going to take a lot of time to ship. Speaker 2: It's only like the size of California and Oregon combined, I believe, is about a similar size. Speaker 1: That's right. I feel it's pretty ridiculous that it's a big market and not too many people are talking about it even to this day. That's why I wanted to break it down for you guys. How to get started selling in Japan. So before we talk about how to sell in Japan, I polled about 200 sellers and then they share with me, these are some of the biggest challenges that you told us about selling in Japan. There's the language barrier, there's no understanding what's involved, there's the total ignorance of the marketplace, the steps setting up, having FBA there with the stock in the country, legislation rules of entering, import compliance are not transparent, PPC ads, of course, are an obstacle because of the language, traditional marketing does not work, regulations, proper listing, translations, food import requirements. So this is all true, but I'm going to distill down Some of the answers for you guys in what I call the six bridges to selling on Amazon Japan. Okay, so at the end of this, most of your questions will be answered. Okay, so Todd, feel free to jump in anytime. If you're deciding whether or not to sell in Japan, the first bridge to cross is product-market fit. So the question is, will my product sell in Japan? Obviously, you don't want to go in blind and just dump like 500 units into Japan without doing any research whether or not it's going to sell. So the good news is, There's a number of ways you can do this and some of these tools you're probably using already. So if you're selling on Amazon in the US, there's the Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer in Seller Central. So the beauty of Amazon Japan is Seller Central, everything is basically the same. There's the Japanese language, but there's a language toggle in Seller Central. In Japan, you can set everything to English. So literally you can read it. Okay. I mean, the keywords and stuff are in Japanese, but you can also machine translate that. So you can get a general idea very quickly going through the Amazon product opportunity explorer. The second way to gauge product-market fit is to use external tools out there, such as Jungle Scout, Helium 10, Datadive. They already support Amazon Japan. The accuracy of each tool may not be as accurate as in the U.S. because They don't have as much data set in Japan, but it can give you, it can gauge a general idea of the search volume and the competitor analysis. So most of you guys are using one of these three tools. So that's another way you can get started for product-market fit. So, I just wanted to share what, for those of you guys watching the video, this is a screenshot of the Amazon Japan search page. So, I typed in a search term, dog bed, in English, okay? And Amazon Japan's website will machine translate that into Japanese and it will spit out their search results for dog bed in Japanese, okay? Again, another big thing selling into Amazon Japan is you can toggle the language to English. So as you can see on screen, there's a language toggle setting here. So you can machine translate everything into English. So let's say, Todd, if you're, I don't know if you're, like how much you talk about your product, like for your product, you literally can go to Amazon Japan. You can type in like the English keyword and you can get a quick glimpse of what it looks like. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nice. They have the translate button there. Definitely help you do the research a little easier. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A fourth tip. For product-market fit is a nifty little website. Some of you guys may have heard called YouTube. Okay. YouTube is huge in Japan. Okay. You can actually get a glimpse of how Japanese people use a product. Okay. So for example, for your product, I don't know, Todd, do you talk about your product on your podcast or no? Speaker 2: No, not typically. Speaker 1: Okay. So let's say you're in the dog bed niche, right? Or if you're in the kitchen niche, you literally can, Go on YouTube. You can type in like, you know, Japanese kitchen walkthrough and you can get a glimpse of what a Japanese kitchen looks like. So you can see, hey, the kitchen is a lot smaller. You know, one of the big things that are different is I don't see like a dishwasher, you know, I don't see an oven, right? So if I'm selling like You know, oven baking accessories, hey, maybe that's not going to work, right? But like the refrigerator is designed a little differently. So if I'm selling like a water filter, you know, like a Brita filter, I may need to modify the size of it to fit a Japanese refrigerator because of how the shelf works, right? So YouTube is another great way to get a glimpse of how people use a product. All right. So, yeah. Yeah, so that's bridge one, product-market fit. Any thoughts or questions so far? Speaker 2: No, I like that. The YouTube is a really good idea. Helium 10 though, I use Helium 10 myself. So you say their data is not quite as good as the US marketplace though? Speaker 1: None of the tools are as accurate as I would have liked in Japan. I'm not trying to badmouth anybody, but it's just simply they don't have the data set. One thing you can do is you can literally go on Amazon Japan and look at Amazon's sales data, because if there's significant sales data, it will list it on the On the search page, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nice that they do that now. It really helps to give you an idea. Speaker 1: That's a huge tip, guys, for those of you guys. Yeah, that's a huge tip. In case you didn't notice, make sure to note that down. And remember, you can toggle that into English. So even if you don't speak a word of Japanese, you can get some, you know, additional product-market fit data, like right away when you're listening to this podcast. Okay. All right. Okay. Just for the sake of time, I'm just going to skip this. Okay. Bridge number two is localization and what I call Japanification. So if you've done the research, if you're pretty confident that you can sell in Japan, then you have to consider the next step, the localization, Japanification, right? So it's not just translating or listing. You have to make sure your listings are tailored to the Japanese market and culture. So that goes That goes from everything from the product listing title, the bullet points, all the way to the images. Some people feel like, hey, I can just use my pre-existing images for the US and just put them in Japan, but not so fast. Case in point, if you're looking on screen, we have this example from Maybelline New York, which is a major women's cosmetics brand. And in the States, like, you know, the models, you know, the style is shot a lot differently than Japan. So in Japan, I'll kind of describe this for those of you guys listening. On the podcast, the Amazon Japan Maybelline New York page, like, I mean, Todd, what do you think is different? I mean, you're coming in with fresh eyes, right? You've seen like, you probably don't, you're not a cosmetics guy, obviously, but I mean, what looks different to you, like on this Japanese Amazon Maybelline storefront? Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is already tailored for the Japanese market, or? Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. This is literally from the Amazon Japan storefront page. Speaker 2: Okay. Um, I guess, uh, lots of brown. Yeah. I don't know the skyscrapers and such in the background. Speaker 1: No, that's good. There's obviously the Japanese skyscrapers, New York. They're playing on the foreignness of the brand because a lot of Japanese people, they like foreign brands. They're cool. Also, you can tell the models, they're using more Asian models. Not only that, they're very fair-skinned. They're very light-skinned because The beauty, like the standard of beauty quote-unquote in Asia is like fair skin versus US where it's tan, right? So like you can see like the look is different and then, you know, there's tremendous detail like I know you guys probably can't read this but it's like 17 seconds for like, you know, one application and then there's also like, you know, it's the number one bestseller and There's also some English mixed in, right? Fashion brow, ultra fluffy, like mixed into the Japanese, but the English, it doesn't sound like your standard English. It kind of sounds funny because like Japanese people, they like to use certain English phrases and it's kind of like cool for Japan, but it kind of sounds funny. So that's what I mean by Japanification, right? It's not just a strict translation of the US page with the same images, right? You have to Japanify it. So that's the point that I'm trying to get across, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't even read that English there, but yeah, fashion, what does it say? Fashion, brow, ultra fluffy. Does it really make sense? Kind of, but... Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you have to consider this as you're localizing your listings into Japan, okay? The other thing is, obviously, translations. Don't just use Google Translate because it does a very poor job of translating your listings, right? So, to sell in Japan, ideally, find someone I'm a native Japanese speaker that can translate it into Japanese and best to get someone with Amazon SEO experience in translation. One translation service I've used in the past is Yana, like her translation company. YLK translation. So they have native Japanese speakers. So if you're looking for that, all right. Speaker 2: How is, say, ChatGPT or Grok at translating English to Japanese? Speaker 1: ChatGPT is better than Google Translate, but I would still, because this is important, right? Because you want to make sure you have proper Amazon SEO Japan. Like ranking, right? So if you're just doing something not super critical, then you can get away with it. But if you're talking about your listing, I mean, this is like the initial impression and you want to make sure you're indexed. Definitely hire a native speaker. Okay. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And they're going to know better, you know, what kind of primary keywords that the Japanese people are going to be searching for. Cause that may not be, well, probably isn't going to be the same as, What we're looking for in English a lot of times though, and a simple translation is not gonna necessarily get that perfectly. Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes beyond the translation and there's like different scripts. There's like three different scripts in Japanese in addition to English. So like a native speaker with SEO experience will know how to do the proper research to make sure you're including the right scripts as well. Okay, so yeah. Okay, so like a quick Example of Japanification, so pop quiz. I'll put you on the spot, Todd. What is the number one most popular restaurant for Christmas in Japan? Speaker 2: Well, if it's the image you're showing me, I mean, I think KFC. Speaker 1: Yeah, you are right. Ding, ding, ding. Speaker 2: And a claws in a KFC bucket. Speaker 1: Yes, in Japan. And some of you guys, this might be surprising for you guys. KFC is the most popular restaurant in Japan to get fried chicken. The reason behind this is there were some very sharp KFC marketing executives back in the 70s, and they noticed that Japanese people they're open to certain foreign things, right? So like Christmas, you know, Christmas like in Tokyo, they have all of like the street lightings, they call it the illuminations, it's very beautiful. And then a lot of people, they want to like Celebrate it as well. And I mean, they see like, you know, the ham and the turkey. Right. But the thing is, as we saw in the kitchen YouTube video earlier, Japanese like apartments don't have ovens. So there's no way you're going to fit like a huge ham or turkey into your toaster oven here in Tokyo, right? So these smart marketing executives were like, okay, you know, the closest thing to that is like fried chicken, right? It kind of looks like the different parts of the turkey. It's American, right? So it became a thing. They were running promotions for like, you know, this Christmas dinner and then it caught on and now You have to book a table at KFC for Christmas dinner or you have to book takeaway in advance to get it. People are literally lining out the door on Christmas for that, for KFC. This is an example of Japanification. Other brands like Starbucks, they do this very well. In Japan, it's very famous for the cherry blossom season, the sakura in the springtime. Starbucks Japan, they have like a cherry blossom coffee drink, right? And it's a thing. Like people are like taking selfies, posting it on socials, you know, so it just goes to show like there's ways that you do the Japanification, the localization, right? That's how, that's another way that, you know, brands are successful. Okay. In Japan. Speaker 2: For sure. And the other thing that I noticed there too is, you know, for example, the style of the building. It's a very Japanese-style building in that image, right, that they have the KFC bucket on top of. So that's something that would be different than marketing the USA as well. I've always seen, too, I feel like in Japan, marketing and everything is much more vibrant and high colorization. Is that the case? Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if you walk down the streets At night of like Shibuya, there's like all the neon lights and there's like the loud like speakers. Yeah, so certain certain brands are into that like for the younger people for for like the middle aged people or It's different, but there's a lot of meticulous detail on the page as well. Japanese people really pay attention to a lot of details, so that would be one of the big differences as well. So moving on to Bridge 3 is import and compliance. So that's one very important bridge to cross because you want to make sure if you're importing into Japan, you want to make sure you have all of your import licenses, regulations. So long story short, there's four key categories that tend to get more scrutiny from Japanese regulators. So these are in the supplements, cosmetics, Medical devices and any plastic products that touches food or drink categories. So if you're selling any of these, be prepared for more intensive checks and regulations. And another thing to be aware of is the costs of testing compliance. The costs depend on the size and complexity of the product. So you may even need separate tests for the different parts of the products, which can be more expensive. In terms of selling in Japan, one of the myths is a lot of people think you have to set up a company to sell in Japan. That's not the case. You can sell in Japan using your foreign LLC. If you have a U.S. company, et cetera, you can sell in Japan. However, what you do need is what they call a Japanese ACP, or Attorney for Customs Procedures. So this is almost like your importer of record. Where you would hire a Japanese company to handle the import processes for you, uh, handle like any import duties, et cetera. And basically. The Japanese government, they just want someone on the ground where they can pick up the phone and call somebody in Japanese if there's any problems, right? So that's one thing you do need to have. If you're looking for an ACP or if you're looking for a import compliance company, one of my partners is a company based in Osaka called Unigay. Y-U-N-I-G-E. So they're experts when it comes to doing all sorts of import compliance. They can answer your questions. You can get a compliance regulation report for a very reasonable cost. So that will give you peace of mind and that will help you find out the costs to get your product in Japan or even if you can import the product in Japan. So yeah, that's a very important bridge to cross. Speaker 2: Yeah, so similar to Canada, Especially this ACP, because we have a customs broker that handles our imports into Canada and takes care of paying all the duties and everything like that to get the product into Canada, and then they charge us for that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So very similar model. Okay. All right. Should we move on to Bridgeport? Speaker 2: Yep. Let's go. Speaker 1: Okay. So, Bridge 4 is shipping and logistics and 3PLs. Biggest thing, as we mentioned earlier, is cheaper and faster shipping from China factory to Japan than to the US or EU. Other big thing is there's no tariffs. There are no additional Trump tariffs because there's no trade war going on between China and Japan or your country and Japan. Immediately, that cuts at least 35% or even more off your landing costs. So that goes directly to your bottom line, guys. And you could possibly price it more aggressively, you know, lower price to get more sales, or that can go into your marketing PPC budget, or it just can go into your pocket, right? So think about that. That's big. Speaker 2: Is that most of the people that you're working with are importing from China to Japan or do you work with a lot of people that are, say, creating their products? In the United States or Canada or Europe and bringing them over to Japan. Speaker 1: A lot of people are manufacturing in China. So, you know, going from China to Japan, they would immediately they would eliminate the tariffs. But I also I'm working with brands, let's say, like with products made in Europe. So that would be different. We work with brands selling in the US, selling in Europe, so we're open to that. If you're doing well, if you're doing like seven, eight figures, you're looking into Japan, then I'm happy to speak some more to help find out your chances of success. And very quickly, Japan has trade agreements with a number of countries, including India, Vietnam, and Thailand. So a number of these countries will even have free trade agreements. So for example, there's a lot of products that we're seeing made in Thailand imported in Japan because Thailand and Japan have a free trade agreement, and many of these products come in duty-free. So not only are you saving on the shipping time, you potentially, you could even cut out those duties, right? So, and lower land and cost more profit. So consider that guys. Okay. Any questions on that? Speaker 2: No, that all makes sense. Speaker 1: So let's move on to bridge number five, launch strategy. Long story short, like the 80-20 rule of this is Amazon has what they call the global review system. And if you're already selling your product in the US or EU, if you have a lot of reviews, let's say you have like, you know, a thousand reviews on your product in the US, you can actually, you can carry over those reviews from the US Into Amazon Japan. So day one, when you launch, you launch with a thousand reviews, the same reviews that you're carrying over. So that is like the big launch strategy in a nutshell, right? Because in Japan, not only are, is the competition lower, the review thresholds are lower, right? As we saw earlier. So that means if let's say the thousand reviews in like us, maybe you're ranked like in the middle of the pack in terms of review count in Japan, you could be towards the top. You could be one of the biggest, most reviewed sellers in Japan. And this is very important in Japan because Japanese people, they don't like to be like the first thing. They're more conservative when it comes to these things. So if there's the social proof, if it has a lot of reviews, it's already a bestseller in the US or in EU, that builds trust and that will improve your conversion rates. So day one, that is a big thing. So I know some of you guys are experienced sellers. Consider that, right? That's like the big launch strategy, right? So that solves like, you know, it just makes everything else easier and, you know, you need way fewer reviews to compete in Japan. Like this, even this diaper brand analysis, this is kind of an extreme example, but like this diaper brand, Pampers, like in the U.S., they have 70,000 reviews. In the U.S., like similar divers only have 13 reviews, right? So you need way fewer reviews to compete in Japan. Speaker 2: Are you seeing those come over automatically or is there anything you have to do to make sure they get pushed over? Speaker 1: You just have to make sure that you use the Global Reviews Program with Seller Central in the back end and they can carry over. With Amazon, we know nothing is simple and straightforward. If it doesn't work, then open up a case and you got to do the dance, etc. You got to be persistent. I think most experienced sellers know what we have to do to make things right. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Speaker 1: Continuing to bridge six from the reviews is having more reviews from day one. It actually makes everything else easier because that could have a piggyback effect of lowering your PPC costs because you're not like Trying to sell a product with zero reviews, right? So, bridge number six is to optimize your sales and marketing in Japan. Amazon PPC in Japan, overall, the cost per clicks will be a lot lower than U.S. and EU. There's also opportunities with all the new types of promotions as bid management, in-depth data for analysis optimization. Like, you know, even like sponsor brand video, like, you know, the top of the page, like those ads, they're all available in Japan and not many sellers are using it yet. So it's still like you can have like the early mover advantage even today. Okay. Outside of Amazon, external marketing is very effective in Japan. It's very big. Social media is key. I want to give you guys some examples of Japanese influencer marketing and So these are examples of how, you know, Pokemon, you know, they have these like online videos, Coca-Cola, you know, avocado from Mexico, you know, these are all like Japanese influencers on YouTube, right? YouTube, also Instagram. Instagram is popular as well. Twitter, X, surprisingly, is very big in Japan as well. One thing that is not big is Facebook. Okay. So as you can see in this graphic, social media marketing, 2023, the most used social media platforms in Japan. Line is the number one social media platform. Have you heard of Line? Speaker 2: I have not. Speaker 1: Most people in North America have never heard of this app. Line is kind of like a super app. It was created in Japan. It's big in Japan. It's big in Thailand as well. It's kind of like a combination of, if you're familiar with China, it's kind of like WeChat. So US comparison would be like WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger. Combined and 82% of the internet users age 16 to 64 use LINE. So LINE is effective to build an audience, to build a list. So like here in Japan, when you buy a product, there could be like a QR code. Obviously, we want to keep it TOS compliant, but there are QR codes and there's ways to get people to build a line audience. Once you have that audience, it's almost like a lever that you pull. Anytime there's a major holiday, you send out a message to your line audience like, hey, we have a sale going on for New Year's. Check out our product. It's 500 yen off. And then the sales just like spike every time you do that. We're seeing that with some of the brands that are leveraging that. Twitter is the second biggest social media platform with 53% usage. Instagram is third, 49.5%. Facebook is ranked a lot lower than what people expect, only 24%. And then TikTok, this study was done A little over a year ago, so TikTok at the time was 18%, but I do see some people using TikTok. But the top three would be Line, Twitter, and Instagram. YouTube is also very big. YouTube isn't social media, but people use YouTube a lot. In Japan, it's also affected for, um, social media marketing. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Okay. Very good to know. Speaker 1: Basically that's the end of the presentation. Um, I did put together a selling on Japan scorecard. So if you're interested in selling in Japan, there's a scorecard that we created and you can find out how your product scores. Um, I, it's at seven figure seller, japan mastermind.com. Sell-in-japan-scorecard. I know that's a tough URL for those of you guys listening. Maybe you can link it up in the show notes. Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll throw it in the show notes. So not a big deal, but what is that? That's essentially, what, some kind of calculator or something like that where you can enter numbers? Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like a 12-point scorecard across a couple of different categories. So you'll find out how well your product is likely to sell in Japan just so you have a better idea of that. And also, if you have any questions, if you're already selling, let's say, so many figures, please reach out to me, gary at 8020sourcing.com, if you are interested in learning more about Selling in Japan. Um, if, yeah, so good luck guys. Hope to hope you guys can, uh, sell in Japan. Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that was, that was great. I appreciate that Gary. A lot of really good information. It makes me. It makes me have thoughts about different products that I could potentially sell in Japan. I think one of the problems for me is that a lot of my bigger selling products are actually made here in the US. So that'd be a long journey over to Japan. But like you said, there's, you know, the Japanese people do like USA stuff. A fair amount. So there may be something there, but I'll have to check out that scorecard and dig into it a little bit more. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. There are definitely, you know, people are willing to pay a premium on certain products made in the US. And also like, it depends on the niche as well. So you might want to check out like similar products on, you know, maybe check out YouTube, you know, see how like, People in that niche on YouTube may or may not use that product in Japan and then also go on Amazon Japan, the website, type in the English keyword and see what comes up, see if there's any similar products with significant sales or not. Speaker 2: All right. Well, that was fantastic. I think you answered pretty much all the questions that I would have had about selling in Japan. Relatively straightforward, very similar to selling in Canada, just mainly the distance and the language difference. Obviously, the language is probably the big thing. Canada, at least they speak relatively the same English as we do. So the language is going to be the biggest thing, but hiring a translator sounds like the best course of action if you really want to make a good listing. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you can also work with Work with people like me that can help you, guide you through the process because I have a team here in Japan and if you're already doing seven, eight figures, if you really are interested, let's jump on a call because we can help you with the product-market fit. I mean, all six bridges, right? Like import compliance, we have a partner that can do all of that. My close partner, Unigate, they can do that. I'd like to just leave everyone with just one mindset, kind of like a hack that I've learned over the years that a lot of sellers I see that are successful, they see these challenges, like the language, the translation, not as like, Not necessarily just something that's like a difficulty, but like something that, hey, once I get across this, this is a moat that's gonna keep out the competition, right? That's why there's so few people selling in Japan, guys, right? Like exactly what you said. But if you're able to cross that, that's a barrier to entry against the competition. So I'd just like to leave that thought with you guys. Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is all about mindset because a lot of people want the easy thing, But if it's easy, then everybody can do it. So the harder it is for you to figure it out and do it, the less likely most other people are going to do the same thing. Speaker 1: Right. Right. Right. And you have to be willing to be successful. You have to be willing to do things that other people are not be willing to do. Right. That's why, Todd, you know, you and me, we're waking up at 5 a.m. A lot of people are still like, you know, groggy in bed and they're sleeping in. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: So, I mean. And your listeners, I'm sure a lot of people are up early as well. I mean, if you're staying all the way until the end, I mean, my hat's off to you, right? I mean, you're invested in your business, so hopefully we can help you guys. Speaker 2: For sure. And so what was your website again, Gary? Speaker 1: So the scorecard again is at sevenfiguresellerjapanmastermind.com slash sell-in-japan-scorecard. We should really make a better URL for them. Speaker 2: And if people want help from you, if people want help from you to bring them over to Japan? Speaker 1: Yeah, they can send me an email, gary at 8020sourcing.com. If you're already selling seven to eight figures in US or Amazon, EU, UK markets, then I'm happy to have a conversation and see how we might be able to help. And, you know, give you like a quick audit. To see. Speaker 2: Okay. Awesome, Gary. Well, this has been fantastic. I appreciate you coming on the show. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure and hope we're able to help some of you guys out there selling into Japan. Unknown Speaker: This has been another episode of the Amazon Seller School podcast. Thanks for listening, fellow Amazon seller. And always remember, success is yours if you take it. Speaker 2: Hey, if you made it this far in the show, I really hope you enjoyed it and I'd like to ask you a favor. Could you head on over to Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this and leave us a review? It would be greatly appreciated and would help us continue to grow the show and offer more episodes for you. Thank you. God bless and have an awesome day.