According to Nikkei Shimbun, TikTok will officially launch its e-commerce service in Japan in mid-2025, and the timing of its core feature, the TikTok Shop, is pretty much locked in – if all goes well, it’ll be launched in June of this year!
According to several headhunters and insiders, TikTok Japan’s commercialization team has been hiring “incredibly fast” recently. A headhunter involved in recruitment bluntly said, “TikTok Japan team is frantically replenishing blood, the goal is clear – to nibble on this piece of high unit price, high consumption power of the market.”
Like most newly opened sites, the first nuggets of gold in TikTok Shop Japan’s small stores are reserved for local sellers, that is, those with local company credentials.
According to information obtained from www.tiktokdatatool.com, the first open models will be local corporate stores and local personal stores, and sellers applying for admission must be locally-registered businesses in Japan with legal business registration certificates, as well as valid tax registration certificates.
01
Will TikTok sell well in Japan?
Despite the fierce competition on social platforms in Japan (Line, Twitter, Instagram dominate), TikTok has quickly broken through with its short and fast entertainment content.
As one of the countries that opened up to TikTok early in its development, TikTok already has about 40 million users in the Japanese market, and most of these users are concentrated in the highly active young group, with 70% of the users aged 18-34 years old.
The monthly active users (MAU) of TikTok in Japan have exceeded 20 million, of which users aged 18-34 account for more than 60%, and female users account for 55%. What’s more, the average daily usage time of Japanese users is as high as 75 minutes, far more than other platforms.
In addition, the acceptance of Japanese users of short videos with goods is increasing. According to the research organization DataReportal, 42% of Japanese TikTok users have jumped to shopping through the platform link, while this proportion is only 27% in 2022.
Japan is the world’s third largest e-commerce market, with a size of 20.3 trillion yen (about 1.2 trillion yuan) in 2023, but the growth rate of traditional e-commerce platforms (e.g., Amazon Japan, Rakuten, Yahoo! Shopping) is slowing down, while social e-commerce is growing by an average of 15% per year.
Japanese consumers prefer “grass-roots shopping”: they learn about products through KOL recommendations and short video reviews, and then place orders through convenient links. This is highly compatible with TikTok’s logic of “interest e-commerce”. In addition, the Japanese market is very attractive to cross-border sellers because of its high unit price (average single purchase of about 5,000 yen) and low return rate (only 5%-8%).
Japanese consumers are demanding of product quality and are highly loyal to local brands, but the proportion of cross-border shopping has increased in recent years (especially in beauty, household, mother and baby categories).
It is worth noting that Japan’s Generation Z is significantly more concerned about environmentally friendly and sustainable goods, and products with “carbon neutral” and “organic certification” labels are more likely to gain favor.
02
How do TikTok Japan merchants sell?
Whether you are a head brand, a small or medium-sized seller, or an individual entrepreneur, the opening of the TikTok Japan market means new opportunities, but you need to develop a differentiated strategy based on your own size.
More importantly, sellers need to look at TikTok’s dual attributes – both as a “sales channel” and a “brand position”. Only by recognizing their own positioning and focusing on their goals in phases can they seize the first opportunity in the bonus period.
Head brand: brand premium + long-lasting grass seeding, use content to build trust
For example, if a high-end skincare brand is stationed in TikTok Japan, it should first join hands with local designers to launch “Mori / Moe / Japanese style limited packaging”, and show the “craftsmanship” in product development through documentary-style short videos. First create momentum, and then open the store, so that the brand search volume growth will have a pre-accumulation.
Core logic:
Dao: Consider TikTok as the strategic high ground of the brand, and build a high-end image through cultural resonance (e.g. traditional craftsmanship, regional characteristics).
Technique: Focus on brand content (factory traceability, user stories) in the early stage, introduce KOL in-depth evaluation in the middle stage, and then convert and precipitate users through live broadcast in the later stage.
Warning: If you blindly pursue the “product effect unity”, in the case of rough content to push sales, but will damage the brand tone.
Small and medium-sized sellers: pop-up driven + traffic harvesting, short and quick to penetrate the vertical track
If you want to sell home furnishing products in Japan, you should aim at the trend of “One Habitat” in Japan, focus on the single product of “Folding Storage Rack”, and precisely place ads through TikTok infomercials + Darren’s publicity to bring goods (emphasizing on “30-second installation” and “weight test”). 30 seconds installation” and ‘load-bearing test’).
Core logic:
Dao: Consider TikTok as an incremental sales channel, and focus resources on cost-effective models.
Technique: The product page highlights the “Japanese-style scenarios of the use of diagrams”, video to strengthen the solution to the pain points (such as small home space remodeling), with limited-time discounts to quickly start the volume.
Red line: avoid the greedy mentality of “both single and brand reputation”, and initially focus on ROI (input-output ratio) controllable pallets.
Individual sellers: flexible trial and error + data iteration, small steps to validate the model
If you are a Japanese student who wants to start a business through TikTok and make your first bucket of money, you can try to test “Chinese-style Hanbok accessories” with TikTok live streaming, initially accumulating fans with “cultural popularization + dressing instruction”, and then adjusting the styles based on feedback from the comment section (e.g. launching more simple designs for daily use). According to the feedback of the comment section to adjust the style (such as the introduction of more suitable for everyday simple design).
Core logic:
Dao: Consider TikTok as a low-cost trial-and-error platform to quickly verify the match between products and content.
Technique: Start broadcasting daily to test the words, optimize the main picture of the product with AB test, and track the “view-click-conversion” funnel through the data board of the small store.
Survival rules: endure the loneliness of the cold start period, refuse to be misled by the “monthly sales of ten million” stories of riches, first run through the smallest profit unit and then amplify.
To be a TikTok merchant, you need to have three key perceptions
Stage Theory: Initially, you should choose either “sales” or “brand power”, but don’t “want both” and “want more” and end up with nothing.
Long-term: Japanese users have a long decision-making cycle and need to continue to output content to cultivate trust.
Anti leek-cutting: Be wary of the “operation myth”, the real opportunity belongs to the independent production of content, in-depth analysis of data sellers.
03
In Japan, Slow is Fast
TikTok Shop is not a game of “quick money”, the only way to win this long-lasting battle of high customer unit price is to combine “Dao” (brand strategy) and “Art” (operation skills), impress users with localized content, and operate the shop in a fine way with data thinking. Only by combining “Dao” (brand strategy) and “Art” (operation skills), impressing users with localized content, and using data thinking for fine operation, can we win the long-lasting battle of high customer unit price.
The landing of TikTok Japanese e-commerce marks the entry of Japanese social e-commerce into the “deep-water zone” – the high unit price market.
For merchants, the launch of the “little yellow car” in June is just the starting point, and whether they can penetrate the unique needs of Japanese users (e.g., ultimate service, cultural resonance) will determine who can succeed in digging for gold in this blue ocean.
To summarize: In Japan, please learn to “tell a story” before you sell your goods.
