TikTok Shop Hits Japan: How to Pick the Right Cross-Border E-Commerce Partner

Recently, TikTok Shop Japan was officially launched. Different from previous Japanese e-commerce platforms, TikTok Shop has a unique short video marketing model. This not only means that a new battle for e-commerce traffic has begun, but also indicates that sellers need to find a suitable track for themselves in this market full of opportunities and challenges.

I. Japan’s 9 major cross-border e-commerce platforms

1. Rakuten Ichiba

User profile: People aged 30-50+ with high spending power, who focus on brand, service and trust.

Advantages: huge traffic, high brand premium, strong user loyalty, and full category coverage.

Suitable for: branded, mid-to-high-end products (home furnishings, beauty products, health foods, etc.), sellers who are willing to invest in long-term operations.

2. Amazon Japan

User portrait: Wide coverage, especially attractive to young people and office workers who pursue convenient and fast delivery.

Advantages: The FBA logistics system is mature, trustworthy, has a large user base, and international sellers are familiar with the operation.

Suitable for: standard products, fast-moving consumer goods, sellers with supply chain advantages, and sellers who value logistics efficiency.

3. YaHOO

User profile: Price-sensitive users, from a wide age range.

Advantages: A local traffic giant in Japan, with powerful price comparison function to attract cost-conscious consumers.

Suitable for: Sellers with competitively priced products, clearance sales, and promotional activities.

4. Mercari

User portrait: Mainly young users (especially Generation Z), who pursue individuality, fashion, and cost-effectiveness.

Advantages: Excellent mobile experience, strong social attributes, and explosive potential for new products/trendy brands/niche categories.

Suitable for: fashion apparel, trendy toys, niche design, fast fashion, inventory clearance.

5. TikTok Shop

User profile: Extremely young (mainly 18-34 years old), love fashion, short videos, and instant recommendations.

Advantages: huge traffic dividend, content-driven hot products, immersive shopping experience, and new marketing methods.

Suitable for: sellers of fashion and beauty, personal care, household items, novelty products, and those who are good at content marketing.

6. Qoo10 Japan

User profile: Price-sensitive young people (mainly 20-40 years old), who are keen on promotions and limited-time discounts.

Advantages: A platform owned by South Korea's Lotte, it has a smooth mobile experience and is very friendly to international sellers.

Suitable for: fast-moving consumer goods, fashion items, digital accessories, small household items and other cost-effective categories, and sellers who are good at planning promotions.

7. WOWMA!

User profile: 66.57% of the audience are male and 33.43% are female. The largest age group of visitors is 35-44 years old.

Advantages: Wowma has more than 38 million active users, providing a huge potential market for sellers. The platform provides precise traffic support policies for different categories and seller groups.

Suitable for: sellers of clothing, fashion, small appliances, cosmetics, and food

8. STARDAY

User profile: Price-sensitive young women (18-35 years old), who are keen on affordable trendy products (apparel, small appliances, and beauty products).

Advantages: All-Chinese backend + low commission, official logistics support; emerging platforms have high traffic dividends and low entry barriers.

Suitable for: cost-effective fast fashion, daily necessities, small appliances, and the preferred channel for small and medium-sized sellers to test the waters in Japan.

9. ZOZOTOWN

User profile: 25-45 years old, high-spending trendsetter, serious fashion enthusiast, and highly loyal.

Advantages: Japan's largest fashion e-commerce company (with over 2,500 partner brands), precise reach to high-end users, and many exclusive co-branded products

Suitable for: designer brands, affordable luxury apparel, trendy shoes and other high-priced differentiated products.

II. How to grasp the traffic of each platform

1. Compliant and high-quality product selection

• Research all mandatory regulations and industry standards for target categories in Japan

• Ensure that products meet requirements from the source and obtain necessary certifications

• Choose differentiated products and stand out with compliant and high-quality products

2. Accurate marketing traffic

Within the platform:

• Refined advertising operations (keywords, crowd targeting), and active participation in platform activities

• Optimize Listing (high-quality pictures, accurate Japanese keywords, persuasive descriptions)

Outside the platform:

• Conduct targeted user promotion on Japanese social media platforms to understand the real needs of target users

• Switch regional IP, crawl localized data, and optimize SEO rankings

3. Safe operating environment

The platform has strict control. Frequent IP changes and multiple accounts logging in with the same IP can easily trigger security alerts or even account suspension, especially for Amazon, Mecari, and TikTok. Please note the following points:

• Use stable Japanese dedicated static residential proxy to simulate real local business behavior

• When operating multiple accounts, each account must be equipped with an independent, pure Japanese IP

• Access e-commerce platforms and search engines through Japanese local IP to obtain localized product rankings and search results

To establish a secure network environment, you can choose IPFoxy, which not only helps to achieve account security isolation, but also can realize multi-account operation efficiently.

III.Conclusion

The addition of TikTok Shop has injected new vitality into Japanese e-commerce. Rakuten, Amazon, Yahoo, and Mercari each have a large and unique user base. The key to success is not to chase the hottest trend, but to find the platform that best fits your product and then operate it well.