Shipping to Japan: Our Guide

The UK is the fourth most popular country for cross-border sales made in Japan, beaten only by China, the US, and South Korea. This makes shipping parcels to Japan a prominent way to expand your e-commerce business. Yet, for that, you need a deep understanding of the market and a good strategy. This article will provide you with both—we invite you to read on!

Parcel Delivery in Japan: Market Insights

Before we proceed with planning your strategy, let’s take a look at the key information about the Japanese market—these facts will define how you enter this country with your products, so it’s crucial to know them.

Delivery

What are the most important elements of parcel delivery for online consumers in Japan? These include:

• clear information about delivery pre-purchase (68%),

• trust in the delivery company (52%),

• free delivery over a certain value (48%),

• simple and reliable return process (39%),

• fast customs clearance (36%).

General Trends

Apart from logistics, several other trends affect parcel shipping to Japan and running an e-commerce store there. What are they?

• Computers still have a slight advantage over mobile devices, though, given previous trends, this is bound to change in the upcoming years.

• Credit cards are a major payment method used by Japanese online consumers (75%). Other popular methods include:

  • digital wallets (12%),

  • debit cards (4%).

• Japanese customers are mostly neutral when it comes to sustainability—while some underline its importance, and only a small group does not care about it, the majority of online consumers are somewhere in the middle of the scale, without a strong opinion either way.

Planning Your Shipping Strategy to Japan

How to ship to Japan? You need a clear-cut strategy that will enable you to estimate the delivery costs and meet the consumers' expectations. What should you focus on in this case?

• Size, number, volume and the dimensions of the parcels sent to Japan.

• The particular airport (and associated last-mile delivery costs) to which you will be shipping your products.

• Returns management (along with the expected return rates).

Naturally, most of these will require some estimations, at least until you start sending your packages to Japan. However, with more data becoming solid, you can calculate your costs better. But even that isn’t the end—on the contrary, it’s just the beginning.

Preparing Your Supply Chain

Knowing how many parcels you want to send to Japan, you need to start thinking about your supply chain. Are you planning self-fulfilment, or will you work with a logistics company? Do you want to ship your products directly to customers, or perhaps you consider setting up a local warehouse? You need to answer all these questions when planning your strategy.

For example, using a local warehouse might be a good idea if you’re expecting high product return rates—you will avoid the extra costs of shipping your products back (and the extra customs duties associated with that). Working with an experienced logistics company will also have its benefits, as you will gain access to better deals with local final-mile carriers. This is critical since Japanese online consumers underline that trust in the delivery company matters to them a lot.

You should also consider where exactly your products will be shipped to. Since Japan isn’t a large country in terms of land, it might be good to select a central airport that is close to any final destination. However, if you expect your buyers to come mostly from a particular region of the country, it might be better to pick an airport in that area.

Finally, you have to consider customs clearance: both for the products you ship into Japan and for those returned by your clients. Handling customs clearance improperly not only poses a risk of additional costs but also of delays that might discourage the consumers from returning to your store; hence, you need to pay a lot of attention to it.

Preparing Your Store

Apart from the shipping strategy, you need to prepare your store for selling in Japan. What do we mean by that?

• Make your store available and responsive both on computers and mobile devices.

• Translate your store to Japanese.

• Build a Japanese customer service team.

• Pay attention to the fonts used—they are the make or break of marketing in Japan.

The Takeaway

Knowing all about parcel delivery to Japan, you are ready to set up your store and conquer this market. Remember—it may take some time, but it’s a great way to gain access to new markets and make the first step towards expanding your business into Asia!

You might also read: Accelerate Your Delivery Process to China and South-East Asia with Multiple Gateway Access