Japan: A Modern Retail Superpower

Japanese distribution was long seen as archaic and difficult to understand, but today that has changed. Domestic firms stretching across all retail formats and categories have taken control of channels and now lead the consumer market from the front. They are now so advanced that the very best are bursting out of the Japanese market and operating across Asia and even as far as Western Europe. Through case studies and concrete examples, this book provides the most detailed analysis of retailing in Japan ever written; it is the definitive guide to how Japan has changed and what to expect in the future.

ROY LARKE is Professor of Marketing at ESADE School of Business, Barcelona, Spain, and at the University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences, Kobe, Japan. He has lived and worked in Japan since 1985, where he teaches retailing and consumer behaviour in Japanese to Japanese students. He publishes regularly in academic journals both Japanese and English and is a recognized authority on the Japanese market. In addition to Japan: A Modern Retail Superpower, he wrote Japanese Retailing (Routledge, 1994), the first definitive guide to the Japanese retail market written by an insider. He has also published two books in Japanese on e-learning and other issues related to pedagogy in Japan. He currently splits his time between Japan and Europe, and is Editor of the influential monthly report, JapanConsuming (http://www.japanconsuming.com).

MICHAEL CAUSTON has founded and built up several companies in Japan. He is senior partner of Sensu (www.sensu.com), a market intelligence and marketing firm that specializes in Japanese consumer marketing and research. He moved to Japan in 1992, consulting for overseas companies looking to enter the Japanese market. He established a fashion import business in 1993 that was helping overseas brands sell more than ¥2.2 billion in apparel a year to Japan by 1999. He also founded JapanConsuming with Roy Larke in 2000, a research business on Japanese retailing that is recognized as the leading resource onmarket entry and business development for international consumer goods companies operating in the Japanese market. He spends his time between Europe and Japan, writing, researching and speaking on Japanese consumer markets, as well as advising leading overseas brands.