8 key facts about Japan e-commerce
www.chandlernguyen.com 2016
1. Japan is the number fourth market in the world in terms of retail e-commerce sales (with China holding the number one spot) 1,568.4
Retail e-commerce sales (Billions)
$1,600
$1,200
911.2
$800
482 385
$400
100.3
122.6
110
132 68.9
82.6
$0
JP
US 2014
UK 2015
2016
China 2017
Germany 2018
Note: Retail e-commerce sales includes products or services ordered using the internet via any device, regardless of the method of payment or fulfilment; excludes travel and event tickets; converted at the exchange rate of US$1=JPY105.855
Source: eMarketer 2015 data
2. Japan is the number fifth market in the world in terms of digital travel sales, with the US being number one market and China being 2nd $198.2
$200.00
Digital travel sales (Billions)
$180.6
$150.00
$113.8
$100.00 $81.7
$50.00
$39.8 $28.7
$45.3
$32.5
$31.6
$33.7
$0.00
JP
US 2014
2015
UK 2016
CN 2017
DE 2018
Note: Digital travel sales includes leisure and unmanaged business travel sales booked via any device; converted at the exchange rate of US$1=JPY105.855
Source: eMarketer 2015 data
3. JP has 76.9M digital buyers (69% of the total population) in 2015, second highest penetration globally, higher than the US (65%), Germany (66%) and China (36.6%), lower than the UK (75%) 67.3%
70.3%
72.2%
71.4%
73.0%
60.8
40.5
54.8%
74.9
76.9
78.3
80.3
79.5
36.5%
20.3
18.3%
0.0
0.0% 2014
2015
Digital buyers
2016
2017
2018
Digital buyer as % of Total population
JP Digital Buyers (in Millions)
81.0
69.0%
Digital buyers (% of population)
Note: Digital buyer: ages 14+; internet users who have made at least one purchase via any digital channel during the calendar year, including desktop/laptop, mobile and tablet purchases
Source: eMarketer 2015 data
4. Spend per digital buyer (including both retail ecommerce and digital travel sales) in JP is significantly lower than buyers in the US and China Annual spend per digital buyer (retail & travel)
$4,000 $3,556 $3,345 $3,158
$3,022
$2,960
$3,000 $2,723
$2,539 $2,121
$2,000
$1,762 $1,406
$1,379
$1,511
$1,930 $1,786 $1,646
$1,000
$0
2014
2015 JP
2016 US
2017
2018
CN
Note: I combined both retail e-commerce sales and digital travel sales to get the total e-commerce sales per market, then divided that by the number of digital buyers to get spend per digital buyer in each market.
Source: eMarketer 2015 data
5. Food/beverages/alcohol/books/CD/DVD are the top product categories purchased digitally by digital buyer in Japan in 2015
6. 80% of digital buyers in Japan bought on Amazon JP in 2015, following by Rakuten and Yahoo JP shopping
7. Compared to many other countries in APAC, JP internet users still heavily use desktop to research and purchase online vs. smartphone or tablet
8. While credit card is the leading payment method used for digital purchase in JP (53%), direct debit through internet/mobile banking ranks second at 14%
Appendix
Majority of digital buyers in JP bought from local sites in 2015, with only 14% digital buyers made at least one purchase from a foreign site a year
