There is a large market for British products in Japan, in 2005 alone the UK exported eight billion pounds of goods and services to Japan. The Japanese market is nearly twice the size of the UK market, with a GDP of approximately $4.3 trillion against the UK's $2.2 trillion in 2007. The average income of Japanese people is generally higher than British, so if your products are sellable in the British market, then the Japanese market has double the potential.
Before you sell your product to Japan, you will probably be wondering which types of products will go down well in the Japanese market. In Marketing Standards experience, the Japanese consumer generally prefers more typically British products that display some kind of heritage. It depends on what types of products you are selling, for example, if you are selling cups and saucers then that has heritage but if your product is more technology orientated then quality is the first issue. For instance, in the printing industry, British products are often very innovative, but when you put innovation in practice to produce a product, the quality is not good enough for the Japanese market. Japanese consumers and buyers are used to really high standards, and quality is paramount.
Once you have a product that you want to sell in Japan, it is important to conduct market research into whether consumers will actually buy it. One way you can conduct market research in Japan is though sampling. There is a company in Japan who specialize in "sample marketing". They have their own store in the high street where the consumer can go to pick up free samples of products if they are a member of the store, which they pay a small fee for. After the consumers test the samples they give feedback in the form of a report, the marketing company then collects this data which shows you the persons age, gender, what job they have and whether they like or dislike the product. You don't need to commission a mass marketing campaign to send thousands of free samples to people who may not be interested in your product, you can target a specific group of consumers.
Once you have conducted your market research, you should have a better idea of whether your product will go down well in the Japanese market or not. The next step is to actually get your product into Japan. There is not much difference between taking your products to market in the UK and taking them to market in Japan. You can find an importer or distributer, you can sell direct from the UK to Japan, or you could take the more costly route of establishing a subsidiary in Japan.
