Essay about Developing Effective Marketing Strategies for the Japanese Market: a Review of the Literature

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International Journal of Management

Vol. 29 No. 3 Part 2

Sept 2012

207

Developing Effective Marketing Strategies for the Japanese Market: A Review of the Literature
Shinichi Hirokawa Argosy University Tsai-Ling Wu Argosy University Japan, as the world’s third largest economy, continues to be attractive to international exporters and investors. It is our argument that the forces of change that led originally to new and bigger opportunities remain the same, despite surface differences. This paper explores some of the key issues related to entering this market. It provides an examination of effective marketing strategies and how the marketing knowledge can be used to enter and succeed in Japan. It outlines six specific marketing
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By the end of 1997, both OfficeMax and Office Depot had established markets in Japan. Office Depot opened its first store in Tokyo’s Shinagawa in late 1997 and opened fifty more stores by 2001. OfficeMax announced had fifty stores with annual sales of more than $300 million by the year 2000, beginning with a 2,000 square-foot store in Yokkaichi City, 200 miles west of Tokyo (Delios, et al. 2007). These new entrants offer a much wider selection and lower prices than their smaller competitors in Japan. The first OfficeMax, for example, carried 10,000 items. It sells ballpoint pens for 99 yen per dozen compared to a price of 80 to 100 yen for a single ballpoint pen at stationery stores. Copy paper, which retails for 5,250 yen at stationery

International Journal of Management

Vol. 29 No. 3 Part 2

Sept 2012

209

stores, costs just 1,630 yen at OfficeMax (Kenney & Florida, 2004). Because these large retailers often do business directly with manufacturers to cut costs, the growth of these stores has also influenced through the wholesale and distribution system. Many of these entrants are bypassing traditional joint ventures and trading companies to launch wholly owned subsidiaries in Japan. Pitney Bowes, for example, established a subsidiary in Japan in 1995. CEO, Shoya Imura, estimated the Japanese market could produce sales of around 300,000-400,000 units and he launched a low-priced postage metering system to attract smaller firms (Yip, 2000). United States