Expert on Japan Retail and Consumer Markets, JapanConsuming

Michael Causton

Michael is co-founder and partner at JapanConsuming.

JapanConsuming is a specialist research firm producing intelligence on Japanese retail and consumer markets. Founded in 2000, JapanConsuming has become the leading provider of insights on Japanese retailers and consumer trends to retailers, brands, government agencies and investors. As well as a highly regarded monthly report on the market, JapanConsuming produces in-depth reports and seminars on retail sectors and consumer trends, as well as telephone consulting/meetings with investors. 

All of JapanConsuming's team are bilingual and bi-cultural, and the company's research sources are:

Direct meetings with retailers, wholesalers, distributors, trade body staff, govt., marketing firms, academics etc.
Govt. data
Trade association data
Trade Press across all consumer sectors
Unique Network of buyers/managers/marketing staff at retail, as well as wholesalers and trading firms.
Editors/Journalists at publishing houses and PR/Ad firms.


JapanConsuming was founded by Michael Causton and Roy Larke. 

Michael Causton set up and ran a consumer distribution business in Tokyo for 10 years and developed this into a business responsible for annual imports to Japan of several billion Yen, at the same time building up an inside knowledge of how Japanese distribution works and developing a network of contacts across the industry. Seeing the lack of quality market intelligence on Japanese markets, he co-founded JapanConsuming in 2000. He divides his time between Japan and Europe/US consulting for companies, governments and investors, including providing talks, seminars, and webinars as well as writing reports and books.

Expert on Japan Retail and Consumer Markets

Japan's Big Apparel Trouble: World to Close 350 More Stores

Japan Fashion Retailing Complete Review 2019-20: Pain Now but a Recovery Is Certain

World Co IPO Trading - Quick Update - Unusually Low Volume Traded Might Point to More Downside

World's IPO: 8 for Effort but Effort Isn't Enough in Japan's Tough Fashion Market

World Co IPO (Pt 2): Floundering Sales Channels Make Pricing at Lower End Expensive Too

Real Insight on Japanese Consumer Markets

JapanConsuming

JapanConsuming is a specialist research firm producing intelligence on Japanese retail and consumer markets. Founded in 2000, JapanConsuming has become the leading provider of insights on Japanese retailers and consumer trends to retailers, brands, government agencies and investors. As well as a highly regarded monthly report on the market, JapanConsuming produces in-depth reports on retail sectors, seminars on key trends and telephone consulting to investors on trends and retailers.

JapanConsuming was founded by Michael Causton and Roy Larke. 

Equity Bottom-Up

Major fashion wholesale-retail group, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/27437" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:27437:1">World Co Ltd (3612 JP)</a>, relisted last year and has now embarked on a number of M&amp;A deals to help diversify its business away from its focus on adult apparel.
It made three deals in March alone. One is a sizing technology service which World hopes to offer to other apparel firms to compete with online services such as that of <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/18379" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:18379:1">ZOZO (3092 JP)</a>, another is a bag brand and the third is an increase in its stake in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/27417" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:27417:1">Narumiya International Co Ltd (9275 JP)</a>.
While diversifying is essential to offset the decline in World's core channel of department stores, such a dramatic shift will bring its own problems and begs the question of whether World can compete in other retail categories where there are already powerful competitors.

Major fashion wholesale-retail group, World Co Ltd (3612 JP), relisted last year and has now embarked on a number of M&amp;A deals to help diversify its business away from its focus on adult apparel.
It made three deals in March alone. One is a sizing technology service which World hopes to offer to other apparel firms to compete with online services such as that of ZOZO (3092 JP), another is a bag brand and the third is an increase in its stake in Narumiya International Co Ltd (9275 JP).
While diversifying is essential to offset the decline in World's core channel of department stores, such a dramatic shift will bring its own problems and begs the question of whether World can compete in other retail categories where there are already powerful competitors.

World Aims to Use M&A to Reduce Apparel Distribution to 50% of Its Business