Ao inc. — Tokyo, Japan
The partner a brand needs to win in Japan, not simply to be listed here.
Ao is an e-commerce operator based in Tokyo. Import and certification, marketplace launch, Japanese product pages, paid media, influencer seeding and press, handled by one team, under one contract. Most of our clients are Japanese brands. The same operation works for a brand that has never sold a unit here, and we normally start by selling your product in Japan before you ship any of it.
Japan is the third-largest e-commerce market in the world and one of the few large markets where a brand can still hold its price. It is also a market that punishes brands that arrive without a plan: four marketplaces that matter, each with its own algorithm, plus certification rules that stop a shipment at the border if you learn about them late.
Source: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Market Survey on Electronic Commerce (FY2024 edition, published August 2025).
The part that surprises most brands is the last line. A Shopify store alone will not carry Japan. A shopper who buys skincare on Qoo10 does not shop the way one who buys a power bank on Rakuten does, and the two platforms reward completely different behaviour from the seller. Deciding which to enter, in what order, is the first real decision, and it is worth more than any campaign that follows it.
Everything between your factory gate and a Japanese customer's front door, without appointing six suppliers to cover the list.
We identify which Japanese requirements your product triggers before you commit to a shipment, arrange the testing and filings, and can act as importer of record.
Store opening, product registration, inventory and pricing, campaign calendars, review programmes, and the daily work each platform demands to keep ranking.
Product copy, photography, video and landing pages produced in Japan, not translated. Written to satisfy Japanese advertising and labelling law from the first draft.
Search, Meta, LINE, TikTok, X and YouTube, plus in-marketplace advertising such as Rakuten RPP and Amazon Sponsored. Run by people who worked inside the ad platforms.
Media placement and influencer seeding through relationships built in-house. A founder ran commerce PR at Japan's largest internet company.
A weekly flash on the core figures, a monthly report with analysis, and a monthly call, scheduled in your working hours, not ours.
Once the launch has told us what Japan pays, there are two ways to structure continuing trade, and the difference is simply where title to the goods sits. It is not a menu you need to pick from now; it settles itself in the first conversation, once we know whether you already have an importer here. And if you would rather skip the launch and go straight to a full distribution agreement, we will. The launch is the default, not a condition.
| We buy and resell | We operate on your behalf | |
|---|---|---|
| Title to the goods | Ao | You |
| Importer of record | Ao | Your existing importer |
| Who holds inventory | Ao | You |
| How we are paid | Wholesale margin | Share of gross profit, on a small fixed base |
| Who funds the launch | Ao | Agreed case by case |
| Usually fits | No entity and no importer in Japan yet | Already importing, but not growing |
This is where most first attempts at Japan fail, and it fails expensively: inventory already manufactured and shipped, sitting in a bonded warehouse. The requirements below are not obscure, only invisible from outside the country.
| If your product is | Japan requires | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| A power bank, charger or battery product | PSE conformity (round mark) | Testing against the Japanese technical standard, notification to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as a business, and a compliant mark on the product itself. |
| An AC adapter or mains-powered device | PSE conformity (diamond mark) | The stricter of the two routes. Testing must be done by a registered conformity assessment body, and lead times are measured in months, not weeks. |
| Anything with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth | Technical conformity certification (giteki) | A separate radio-equipment approval with its own mark. A device can hold CE and FCC and still be illegal to sell in Japan without this. |
| Cosmetics or skincare | Marketing authorisation and product notification | A licensed entity must hold the marketing authorisation. Ingredients, labelling and every advertising claim are governed by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Act. |
| Food or supplements | Import notification under the Food Sanitation Act | Filed per shipment at the quarantine station, with ingredient and manufacturing documentation prepared in advance. |
| Textiles or household goods | Household Goods Quality Labelling Act | Fibre composition, care symbols and the labeller's contact details must appear on the product in the prescribed Japanese format. |
We tell you which of these apply before you commit to anything, not after the container has sailed. Where you already hold test reports from another market, we check what can be reused, because that difference often decides whether a trial is worth running at all.
Two thirds of everything bought online in Japan is bought inside three marketplaces, and a brand’s own store accounts for about a fifth. This is the fact that catches out brands arriving from markets where direct-to-consumer is the default.
Market size: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Market Survey on Electronic Commerce (2024, published August 2025). Channel split: Ao estimate. None of the three marketplaces discloses a Japan figure on a comparable basis. Amazon publishes no GMV for Japan at all, and Rakuten does not separate Rakuten Ichiba from its other domestic businesses. The split is our own working estimate rather than a reported figure, and we would rather say so than dress it up.
We operate across all six channels below, and we will tell you which to skip. Entering all of them at once is the most common and most expensive mistake a new entrant makes. The right first channel is rarely the biggest one; it is the one whose audience already buys your category.
Loyalty-point driven and campaign-led. Rewards sellers who commit to the platform's promotional calendar. Store design and RPP advertising both matter.
Search-led and review-dependent. The fastest route to a first sale, and the least forgiving on price once other sellers appear on the listing.
Low barrier to entry with a distinct, price-sensitive audience. One of our founders spent years inside the company that runs it.
Where Japanese beauty buyers under 35 discover foreign brands. Structurally the best first channel for cosmetics and skincare.
New in Japan and still cheap to reach. Suits visually demonstrable products and brands willing to produce video continuously.
Shopify and equivalents. The right place to own the customer relationship, and the wrong place to start if nobody in Japan knows the brand yet.
For a brand that has never sold a unit here, the honest problem is that nobody, us included, knows what Japan will pay for your product. Most partners solve this by asking you to guess, then asking you to ship against the guess. We would rather buy the answer first.
So the first thing we normally do together is a launch on Makuake or GREEN FUNDING, the two Japanese platforms where new products are sold before they are stocked. Both take a percentage of what is raised, and it comes out of our margin rather than your price. Buyers pay up front and wait for delivery. A launch there is not a survey. It is revenue, from people who committed their own money, at a price you approved.
Nothing, and no inventory. Ao writes the Japanese page, shoots what needs shooting, buys the media, runs the press and answers every enquiry in Japanese, and carries that cost. What we need from you is product images, video and technical detail. Our first purchase order is then the number of units the launch actually sold. Not a forecast, not a minimum negotiated in advance, but the count of paying buyers. You produce against confirmed demand, and neither side is left holding stock for a market that turned out not to want the product.
A launch produces things that are hard to buy separately: a Japanese product page written to satisfy Japanese advertising law, press coverage, several hundred named Japanese customers, reviews in Japanese, and a written read on price and which configuration Japan buys. If we go on to full distribution, all of it carries over. If we do not, it is yours.
The platforms will not accept a foreign product without a signed exclusive agreement for Japan. That is their rule rather than ours, and it exists so the same product cannot be launched twice. We ask for six months, covering preparation and the campaign, and nothing longer. If the launch reaches figures we agree with you in advance, we convert to a full distribution agreement on terms already fixed in the same document. If not, the six months end and you are free.
Your contact is one project manager. Behind them, three specialists work on your account. The team meets weekly and resets the plan; you get a written flash on the core numbers each week, a full report each month, and a call to go through it. Hiring the equivalent here means four people, four salaries, and a year before the last one starts.
Four specialisms, one contract, one invoice, one person to call. The alternative most brands try first is a translation agency for the copy, a photographer for the images, an ad agency for the media and a forwarder for the import, and then someone at head office spends their week holding the four together.
Six steps. Ten business days from the first call to a proposal you can take to your own board. That is slower than we would quote a Japanese client, because pricing a foreign product for Japan means working through certification, duty and freight before any of the numbers mean anything.
A call, then a look at your product, your existing markets and any certification you hold.
We confirm exactly what Japan requires for your product, what can be reused from other markets, and what it costs and takes in time. This comes first because it is the one answer that can make the rest moot.
Channel selection, launch plan, pricing built up from your FOB price through duty and freight, forecast, and a term sheet setting out the commercial terms.
Certification and filings where needed, the Japanese product page, photography, the advertising accounts, and the pre-launch audience we open the campaign to.
The campaign runs on Makuake or GREEN FUNDING. We build the page, buy the media and handle the press and every buyer enquiry. At the end you have a confirmed order quantity and a read on price.
Weekly flash figures, a monthly report, and a monthly call. At the end of a trial you get a written read on sell-through, price and which SKU works in Japan.
Launch build varies most with certification. A product needing no Japanese approval can be live in about four weeks; one requiring diamond-mark PSE testing takes considerably longer, and we will say so before you sign anything. Sea freight from South China adds two to three weeks door to door once customs clearance is counted, and a first shipment is always slower than the ones after it. We plan backwards from the date you want stock on a shelf, not forwards from the date you place the order.
Japanese clients, anonymised at their request.
Several channels running at once with flat sales, and advertising that was not translating into profit. We rebuilt the profit and loss view by product and channel, then reallocated the media budget and rebuilt the CRM programme around it.
Separate owners and policies per platform meant review handling and retention were being improvised. We built one operating structure across the marketplaces and a single design for reviews and CRM.
Launched with neither the people nor the knowledge to run daily e-commerce. We took it from strategy to full day-to-day operation.
Figures are as reported to the clients concerned and cover the engagement periods in question. Past results are not a forecast of what your brand will do in Japan, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Three founders. Between us we have sat on the platform side, the brand side and the agency side of Japanese e-commerce, which is why we tend to know why a marketplace behaves as it does, not only that it does.
Nagoya University, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences. At a major Japanese internet company he advised marketplace merchants on improving sales across a large portfolio of stores, then moved to the advertising division to lead campaign management for major clients. Founded Ao in 2023.
Waseda University, School of Commerce. Worked at a major Japanese e-commerce platform, then joined a cosmetics and healthcare D2C brand in its earliest days, moving from corporate planning into marketplace operations, new channels and product planning, and ending as head of its domestic business. Co-founded Ao in 2023.
Chuo University, Faculty of Law. Joined Yahoo Japan (now LY Corporation) from university in enterprise sales and sales planning for its e-commerce marketplace, then a new venture with an affiliated Korean technology company, before running public relations across the company's commerce business. Later handled PR at a Tokyo startup. Co-founded Ao in 2023.
Everything that has to happen in Japanese happens on our side. Customs and import filings, certification applications, marketplace onboarding, product copy, customer service, supplier and platform negotiation. None of it lands on your desk. Written correspondence with you is in English, and where a call needs precision we bring an interpreter rather than guess.
| Legal name | Ao inc. |
| Representative Director & CEO | Daisuke Suzuki |
| Founded | April 2023 |
| Registered office | Kuwano Building 2F, 6-23-4 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001, Japan |
| Business | E-commerce consulting and operations, paid media management, AI adoption support, content production |
| General enquiries | info@aoinc.co.jp |
Either. We can buy at wholesale and take on the import, the inventory and the regulatory responsibility, or you can keep title to the goods and we run your Japanese operation for a fixed monthly fee. Which one applies is a question of whether you already have an importer here, not a package you have to choose between.
For the trial, yes, and only for the trial. Six months, Japan only, and it lapses unless both sides choose to continue. We ask because we fund the launch, and a launch we pay for should not be something a second distributor can arrive and trade on.
What we do not ask for at this stage is a multi-year exclusive or an annual purchase commitment. Those belong in a conversation you have after there are numbers on the table, not before.
Where we buy and resell, Ao does. That matters more than it sounds: the importer carries the legal responsibility for conformity and labelling in Japan, and it is also the name that appears on the product. Where you keep title, your existing importer continues and we work alongside them.
If your product is currently entering Japan under an unrelated forwarding agent's name, which happens more often than brands realise, we will tell you, because it affects who controls your listings.
It depends entirely on the product, and we will not quote a range without seeing yours. What we can say is that the single largest variable is whether existing test reports from other markets can be reused. We check that first, before anything else, and give you a written figure and timeline you can take to your own board.
As small as it can be while still producing a readable result. What that number is depends on your price point and category, so we would rather work it out with you than name a figure here. Payment is a deposit against balance on receipt, or consignment for the first shipment.
The purpose of a first shipment is evidence: sell-through, price elasticity, which configuration Japan buys, not revenue.
A product requiring no Japanese certification can be live in around four weeks from signature. A product needing radio or electrical approval takes longer, sometimes considerably. You will have that answer in the first week, in writing, before you commit anything.
We do, all of it. Import and customs filings, certification applications, marketplace onboarding, product copy, advertising, customer service, and any negotiation with platforms or suppliers here. Written correspondence with you is in English; where a call needs to be precise we bring an interpreter.
On what sells. Where we buy and resell, that is the wholesale margin. Where we operate on your behalf, it is a share of the gross profit the Japanese business generates, on a small fixed base.
We ask for the share to be calculated on gross profit rather than gross sales. Paid on gross sales, a partner has every reason to discount your product and spend your media budget. Paid on what is left after cost of goods and media, they want the same outcome you do.
Tell us what you make and where you sell it now. If Japan is not right for your product yet, we would rather say so at this stage than three months into a launch.
We reply to every enquiry within one business day, Tokyo time. There is no obligation attached to a first call, and we are happy to sign a mutual NDA before you send product details.