A month or two ago me and my business partner got some inventory stored at an Amazon Japan warehouse. This was the beginning of our Japanese experiment to learn how to get products over to an Amazon warehouse in Japan and then to sell.
We set up our listing as best as we could with Japanese translations of the UK listings. We did no launch process other than set up an Auto Amazon PPC campaign and waited to see if someone would buy.
We had zero reviews or seller feedback in Japan so we expected things to start slowly, and we were happy to wait it out. We are averaging about 1 sale per day, not great but it’s a start.
For the level of stock we have the storage fees in a UK warehouse is around £47 per month, so to say it was a shock when we got a bill for ¥33,400
(about £260) for a months storage in Japan is an understatement.
At first I thought this much be an error, but I found the storage fees page on Amazon Japan and I saw the is now clear huge fees were correct.
I held a meeting straight away with my business partner to figure out what we needed to do, because it is now clear we can not just wait it out and hope sales pick up.
Priority number one is reviews. Our current conversion rate (sales vrs listing views) is averaging 5.43% for the last 30 days. I would expect at least double that and maybe even triple. Having a few reviews (estimate 10 positive reviews) will help a lot with this.
We also need to show up more. Currently we are getting around 20 page views per day, this needs to improve. I want this up to at least 100 views per day. At this level and a conversion rate of 10% that would be 10 sales per day. This is a better base level for us to grow from.
Summary
Be aware of high storage fees in Amazon Japan warehouses. Nobody who talks about selling in Japan mentions these high costs so this needs to be taken in to account.
However, while a shock and pain for us it has kicked us in to action. No more sitting on our hands, we cannot afford to pay £260 per month to hold products that are not selling. Reviews, better keywords, and more advertising will help us achieve this.
Leave a Reply