How to Move from 'Setting Up Shop' to 'Sustainable Operations' in the Japanese Market? Rakuten China's Zhou Yang to Attend 2026 Brand Supply Chain Innovation Private Board Meeting

For Chinese brands, Japan is a geographically close market with a unique commercial ecosystem and consumption logic.

It boasts a mature retail system, strong consumer purchasing power, and a still-growing e-commerce market, where consumers have formed relatively stable demands for product quality, brand trust and service experience. After entering Japan, Chinese brands need to further align with local channel characteristics and consumption habits, and build more adapted operation models in areas such as store operation, local marketing and fulfillment services.

Therefore, expanding to Japan requires not only solving the problem of "how to enter", but also answering the question of "how to operate sustainably and achieve growth". On August 28, the "2026 Brand Supply Chain Innovation Private Board Meeting and 'ZTO Cloud Warehouse Night' Appreciation Dinner", co-hosted by Ebrun and ZTO Cloud Warehouse Technology, will be held at the Shangri-La Hotel Hangzhou City Center. Zhou Yang, Chairman and General Manager of Rakuten Cross-border E-commerce (China) Co., Ltd., has confirmed his attendance and will deliver a keynote speech on "New Growth Paths for Chinese Brands Expanding to the Japanese Market".

Drawing on changes in Japan's e-commerce market, the Rakuten ecosystem and operational practices of Chinese merchants, he will introduce the opportunities and thresholds that Chinese brands need to pay attention to when entering the Japanese market, as well as the localized operation support that Rakuten Group is providing for Chinese merchants.

01

A sufficiently mature market, but entering Japan does not guarantee organic growth

According to public data, Japan's B2C e-commerce market size reached 26.12 trillion yen in 2024, making it one of the world's major e-commerce markets. Meanwhile, categories where Chinese brands have comparative advantages, such as home appliances, furniture and general merchandise, as well as apparel and accessories, all have e-commerce penetration rates of over 20% in the Japanese market.

The continuous growth of market size and e-commerce penetration has provided new development space for Chinese brands. However, Japan is not a market that can be quickly tapped by low prices or traffic alone.

Its local retail system is highly developed, and consumers have stable expectations for product information, store services, logistics timeliness and after-sales experience. Brands not only need to provide products that meet demands, but also understand how local consumers discover products, build trust and make purchase decisions.

This means that for Chinese brands entering the Japanese market, they need to handle not only language translation and product listing, but also a series of localization issues including product selection, brand expression, store operation, marketing promotion, customer service and supply chain fulfillment.

How to shorten the learning curve for an unfamiliar market, and build an operation model suitable for the Japanese market while maintaining product advantages, will be a key focus of Zhou Yang's speech.

02

From single-channel to ecosystem-based operation: How can brands reach Japanese consumers?

Since its founding in 1997, Rakuten Group has evolved from an e-commerce platform to a service ecosystem covering e-commerce, finance, mobile communications and other businesses. Different services are interconnected through the Rakuten ID and points system, allowing consumers to use Rakuten's services continuously across multiple daily scenarios.

For settled merchants, this ecosystem provides more than just a product sales entry point.

Brands can leverage the platform's user base, points system, marketing resources and data tools to gain a more detailed understanding of consumer needs, and gradually build market awareness through store operation, content expression and marketing activities. Rakuten Ichiba has also applied AI to merchant operations, with related tools currently covering product description generation, product image processing, customer inquiry response, review management and store data analysis.

These capabilities address the common operational challenges faced by cross-border merchants entering new markets: how to reduce communication costs for content and customer service work, how to understand store performance faster, and how to adjust product and operation strategies based on user feedback.

However, platform tools can only provide support. Whether a brand can achieve long-term growth still depends on its willingness to truly understand local users and continuously make localized adjustments to products, content and services.

03

From successful onboarding to stable operation: What support do Chinese brands need?

As of 2025, more than 1,000 overseas stores have opened on Rakuten Ichiba. According to data provided by Rakuten Ichiba, both the number of overseas stores and their sales revenue have maintained growth. As more Chinese enterprises focus on the Japanese market, Rakuten is further strengthening its local services for Chinese merchants.

In 2026, Rakuten Japan launched the "Thousand Stores Overseas Expansion Program", which provides corresponding solutions for Chinese enterprises at different development stages covering merchant recruitment terms, store operation, merchant cultivation and logistics support.

For enterprises that have just entered the Japanese market, Rakuten Ichiba plans to help merchants build a basic operation system through optimized recruitment terms, official operation services and online and offline training activities. For stores in the growth stage, it will help them reduce trial and error costs and improve operational efficiency through experience sharing, marketing resources and merchant incubation mechanisms.

In terms of logistics, the program also proposes building a model of direct shipping from Chinese warehouses to Japanese warehouses, aiming to further reduce cross-border logistics costs, improve transportation timeliness and provide more stable fulfillment support for store operations.

From entering the platform to obtaining traffic and then generating sustained sales, Chinese brands expanding to Japan need not a single-point breakthrough in one link, but a complete support system covering channels, operation, marketing and supply chain.

This also makes collaboration between platforms, brands and supply chain service providers even more important. Platforms help brands understand the market and connect with consumers, while supply chain partners need to ensure that products can reach the market in a stable and flexible manner. Only when front-end operation and back-end fulfillment are coordinated can brands truly translate market opportunities into long-term business.

In his speech, Zhou Yang will draw on Rakuten Group's ecological capabilities in the Japanese market and its service practices for Chinese merchants to further elaborate on the practical opportunities, operation paths and supporting facilities for Chinese brands entering Japan. For Chinese brands that wish to enter Japan, or have already started their layout but are still looking for growth methods, the discussion in this speech will not only focus on "how to open a store in Japan", but also on how to gradually build their own operational capabilities in a mature and unique market.

On August 28, Zhou Yang, Chairman and General Manager of Rakuten Cross-border E-commerce (China) Co., Ltd., will share new paths for Chinese brands to explore the Japanese market at the 2026 Brand Supply Chain Innovation Private Board Meeting.

This article was first published on the official website of Ebrun.