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How To Evaluate Japanese Distributors

When evaluating Japanese distributors, it’s easy to ignore companies that don’t have much English on their websites. This is a big mistake! In my experience, there is NO relationship between having an English-language site and being an effective distributor. This is because the best distributors are focused on their Japanese customers, not on attracting foreign companies who want to do business with them. And, as I discussed yesterday, if a company is already distributing one or more non-Japanese products, they …

Do Japanese Distributors Speak English?

Clients also often ask whether they’ll have trouble communicating with potential Japanese distributors and agents and wonder if they’ll need an interpreter or translator to do business in Japan. In our experience, this isn’t necessary because distributors that are already importing and distributing foreign products almost always have employees who can speak English. For smaller companies, this is usually the president or sales manager. In larger firms, there will be one or more employees assigned the task of working …

How To Find Distributors In Japan

In the previous article, I discussed ways to avoid “zombie” distributors. In this article, I’ll look at methods for finding potential Japanese distributors. If you’ve spent any time at all searching the Internet for potential Japanese distributors, you already know that using Google to find these companies doesn’t work very well. This is because Japanese distributors often don’t have English language websites and don’t do a good job of marketing themselves outside Japan. Their primary focus is on their Japanese …

How to Avoid “Zombie” Japanese Distributors

In the previous article, we looked at how foreign products are distributed in the Japanese market. In this article, I’m going to talk about another common mistake that foreign companies often make in Japan. This is the mistake of going with the first distributor that shows interest in their product. Let me share with you part of an email I received from a company in Europe: XYZ has been been our rep in Japan for three years but so far …

How Japanese Distributors Of Foreign Products Operate

A common mistake many foreign companies new to Japan make is trying to sell to the large Japanese wholesalers and retailer chains in their industry. Unfortunately these companies are rarely interested in dealing directly with non-Japanese suppliers unless they have an office in Japan. So what the best way to sell your products in Japan? Simple. You go through Japanese distributors specializing in imported products. There are thousands of these distributors and they are typically nimble, highly entrepreneurial companies who …