❚ What’s driving Japan’s e-commerce acceleration
The habits formed during the pandemic have become permanent. Shoppers who once favoured bricks-and-mortar outlets now weigh up health risks and convenience, choosing contact-free purchasing instead. Add the fact that small personal imports escape both duty and the 10 per cent consumption tax, and direct checkout from overseas sites has surged. Customs approvals for inbound parcels have climbed into double-digit growth versus pre-COVID levels, and tracking data shows most consignments now go straight to residential addresses rather than businesses.
❚ The built-in price advantage for overseas brands
Current rules exempt shipments with a customs value of ¥10,000 or less—about ¥16,666 at retail, roughly 110 US dollars—from duty and consumption tax. Domestic sellers must layer that 10 per cent tax onto every item, but an offshore label can list the same shelf price and still land on the doorstep about ten per cent cheaper. A weak yen widens the gap even further, giving manufacturers who enter Japan a ready-made pricing weapon from day one.
❚ Product categories where demand is heating up
Cross-border spend keeps punching out fresh records. Payment-gateway data show Japanese cards charging nearly ¥395 billion to US and Chinese platforms in 2022 alone, roughly a six-per-cent jump year on year. The fastest-growing categories include apparel and sportswear along with colour cosmetics such as lip tints and lipsticks. A culture that prizes both personal fitness and self-expression is steering shoppers towards overseas fashion and beauty labels that they cannot easily find at home.
❚ Why the right partner determines success
Domestic makers are not the only ones feeling the pressure of rapid expansion. Japanese authorities are also scrambling to plug data gaps and protect revenue. Customs has already made it compulsory to appoint an Authorised Customs Broker (ACP), and further policy tweaks are on the table. Brands that fail to monitor rule changes risk delays and extra cost.
Bottleship minimises that friction by handling everything from ACP nomination and nationwide 3PL set-ups to store builds and daily operations, while tracking regulatory shifts and proposing work-arounds. In a volatile market, a price edge alone is not enough; winning teams couple data-driven risk management with hands-on local execution to seize the opening while it lasts.
