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

🇰🇷🇯🇵 That Was The Week That Was • North Asia 22nd-27th July 2019 @Smartkarma

Amazon Japan Takes Control of Deliveries as Expansion Continues

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. 

Event-Driven

<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/yahoo-japan-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:19603:1" rel="noopener">Yahoo Japan (4689 JP)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/askul-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:16807:1" rel="noopener">Askul Corp (2678 JP)</a> have begun an unusual (for Japan) public display of disaffection in the last month. The cause is Yahoo's desire to grab Lohaco, a division of Askul that Yahoo helped create, and Askul's unwillingness to let it go. Meanwhile, plenty of other companies would like to buy Lohaco and or Askul in its entirety in order to boost their own e-commerce businesses. This could be the start of a messy battle for control but as <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/profiles/travis-lundy" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="accounts:25" rel="noopener">Travis Lundy</a> <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/askul-vs-yahoo-japan-gloves-off" target="_blank" rel="noopener">makes clear</a> there seems to be mostly upside for investors.Yahoo claims that Askul’s performance has been sub-optimal and that Lohaco in particular would do better under Yahoo control. However, Askul, and Lohaco, in particular, were devastated by a warehouse fire in 2017 which took two years to recover from. Recent results show encouraging signs of growth of both sales and operating income.In addition, Askul’s plans for Lohaco going forward look coherent, realistic and promising.Yahoo implicitly claims that Lohaco is an entirely separate entity from Askul. This is harder to disprove but in my view, much of Lohaco’s initial success and the very high trust levels it has with consumers now come from Askul’s reputation in the market. In addition, many of the recent improvements at Lohaco and the upcoming plans rely on high levels of expertise in logistics and direct marketing which Askul has. In other words, trying to separate Lohaco from Askul is not as simple as just transferring ownership.While Askul’s BtoB business doesn’t hold much promise long-term, Lohaco is the potential jewel in its crown, partly because of the mall’s fulfilment service levels and partly because of distinctive merchandise ranges from private label and manufacturer collaborations (150 and counting).However, the real value in Lohaco in my view is its potential to become a platform for online grocery sales. Food e-commerce is about to boom and all the big players are already lined up and building share and many would like to get ahold of Lohaco to facilitate this expansion. They are led by Amazon which not only has Amazon Fresh but has just tied up with Japan’s biggest single supermarket chain, Life Corp. Meanwhile, Rakuten has a joint venture with Walmart (Seiyu) who has just announced a renewed enthusiasm for Japan (even if only to sell later but that buyer could be Rakuten). And the big CVS, Seven-Eleven and Lawson also have nascent online food businesses.Yahoo has nothing in this area at all but as the third big mall operator desperately needs a partner to make this happen. Building its own online food business would be years of work because doing food e-commerce is a lot harder than operating a generic online mall.Lohaco, however, is already tied with a big partner: it is working with Seven &amp; I on the fresh food section of its online mall called IY Fresh. This partnership has been going since 2017 and by all accounts, the CEOs of Askul and Seven &amp; I have become fast friends since signing off on the deal. Seven &amp; I stated in its new annual report that it sees a strong future for IY Fresh and its e-commerce operations.In my view, Seven &amp; I wants Lohaco for itself to bolster its existing online business and plans for the Net Convenience App that it launched last year.This would be a major set back for Yahoo and probably why Yahoo wants to take control now – and perhaps not coincidentally there were reports last year of a joint venture between Yahoo, Softbank and Seven &amp; I’s major rival, Aeon, in online food, again possibly using Lohaco as the base.As to who finally ends up successfully tying with Askul/Lohaco or just Lohaco remains to be seen but Seven &amp; I would make the most strategic sense and is probably Askul’s favoured partner given the existing relationship.As always for the technical and financial implications of this trade, I defer to <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/profiles/travis-lundy" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="accounts:25" rel="noopener">Travis Lundy</a> who has <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/askul-vs-yahoo-japan-gloves-off" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a full analysis and summary of the likely scenarios here</a>. My review below lays out the operational and strategic issues, the potential growth for Askul/Lohaco and the reasons why Lohaco has become such an alluring bride.

Yahoo Japan (4689 JP) and Askul Corp (2678 JP) have begun an unusual (for Japan) public display of disaffection in the last month. The cause is Yahoo's desire to grab Lohaco, a division of Askul that Yahoo helped create, and Askul's unwillingness to let it go. Meanwhile, plenty of other companies would like to buy Lohaco and or Askul in its entirety in order to boost their own e-commerce businesses. This could be the start of a messy battle for control but as Travis Lundy makes clear there seems to be mostly upside for investors.Yahoo claims that Askul’s performance has been sub-optimal and that Lohaco in particular would do better under Yahoo control. However, Askul, and Lohaco, in particular, were devastated by a warehouse fire in 2017 which took two years to recover from. Recent results show encouraging signs of growth of both sales and operating income.In addition, Askul’s plans for Lohaco going forward look coherent, realistic and promising.Yahoo implicitly claims that Lohaco is an entirely separate entity from Askul. This is harder to disprove but in my view, much of Lohaco’s initial success and the very high trust levels it has with consumers now come from Askul’s reputation in the market. In addition, many of the recent improvements at Lohaco and the upcoming plans rely on high levels of expertise in logistics and direct marketing which Askul has. In other words, trying to separate Lohaco from Askul is not as simple as just transferring ownership.While Askul’s BtoB business doesn’t hold much promise long-term, Lohaco is the potential jewel in its crown, partly because of the mall’s fulfilment service levels and partly because of distinctive merchandise ranges from private label and manufacturer collaborations (150 and counting).However, the real value in Lohaco in my view is its potential to become a platform for online grocery sales. Food e-commerce is about to boom and all the big players are already lined up and building share and many would like to get ahold of Lohaco to facilitate this expansion. They are led by Amazon which not only has Amazon Fresh but has just tied up with Japan’s biggest single supermarket chain, Life Corp. Meanwhile, Rakuten has a joint venture with Walmart (Seiyu) who has just announced a renewed enthusiasm for Japan (even if only to sell later but that buyer could be Rakuten). And the big CVS, Seven-Eleven and Lawson also have nascent online food businesses.Yahoo has nothing in this area at all but as the third big mall operator desperately needs a partner to make this happen. Building its own online food business would be years of work because doing food e-commerce is a lot harder than operating a generic online mall.Lohaco, however, is already tied with a big partner: it is working with Seven &amp; I on the fresh food section of its online mall called IY Fresh. This partnership has been going since 2017 and by all accounts, the CEOs of Askul and Seven &amp; I have become fast friends since signing off on the deal. Seven &amp; I stated in its new annual report that it sees a strong future for IY Fresh and its e-commerce operations.In my view, Seven &amp; I wants Lohaco for itself to bolster its existing online business and plans for the Net Convenience App that it launched last year.This would be a major set back for Yahoo and probably why Yahoo wants to take control now – and perhaps not coincidentally there were reports last year of a joint venture between Yahoo, Softbank and Seven &amp; I’s major rival, Aeon, in online food, again possibly using Lohaco as the base.As to who finally ends up successfully tying with Askul/Lohaco or just Lohaco remains to be seen but Seven &amp; I would make the most strategic sense and is probably Askul’s favoured partner given the existing relationship.As always for the technical and financial implications of this trade, I defer to Travis Lundy who has a full analysis and summary of the likely scenarios here. My review below lays out the operational and strategic issues, the potential growth for Askul/Lohaco and the reasons why Lohaco has become such an alluring bride.

ヤフーだけでなく、誰もがアスクルのロハコを買いたい