Asking the Wrong Questions Part 3: "Will This Sell in the U.S.?"

Part 3 of “the Wrong Questions Japanese Businesses Ask”

HINT: The answer is always “yes,” but it’s also always “no.”

It depends entirely on your company’s approach, attitude, and investment.

The Real Opportunity

There is always a market in the U.S. for any Japanese product, but not necessarily because it’s a Japanese product.

Korean businesses find that market. Chinese direct-to-consumer sellers find it, often with inferior quality products.

They copy your ideas, price them competitively, and sell them as if they’re a brand new idea.

And we LOVE them.

What do Japanese businesses do instead?

They say:

“The American market won’t like these. We should focus on the Asian market instead.”

But what they really mean is:

“We don’t know how to brand or compete in the U.S. market, so we’ll stick to Asia, where our brand name alone carries weight, making it a lot easier to sell our products without learning how to sell our products in the U.S. which is highly competitive and hard.”

Toilet Seat & Bidets

In the early 2000s, when we were just starting out, we met with a major Japanese toilet manufacturer. (Not Toto—they’ve always had a clear understanding of the American market and it shows in their massive success here.)

This company sat down with us and confidently declared that Americans would never adopt bidet seats while I said that Americans abroad loved bidets and washlets, so the market was ripe for the toilet seat conversions.

They argued that it was a European or Japanese phenomenon, unsuited for Americans and our culture. Their solution? Focus entirely on Asia instead.

What’s happened since? Toilet seat bidets (often called washlet which is a Toto specific name but now semi-part of the vernacular like the word Kleenex), are a more and more common part of American households in even the most unexpected of demographics. Sold by both U.S. start-ups and a slew of Asian vendors, from Amazon to upscale, the options are unlimited.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve had that same conversation tens, if not hundreds, of times with Japanese companies.

The products vary, but the routine is the same every time:

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A head of sales or marketing from a major Japanese multinational corporation comes looking for advice about a product that's invisible or struggling in the U.S. market.

I explain how to introduce it: emphasize visibility, invest in digital and w.o.m marketing, and point out its existing popularity among Americans familiar with it in Japan or Asia as proof that it’s not the “not popular with Americans” on a molecular level item they’re trying to paint it to be but rather a failure of marketing. (Which, since it’s their failure, doesn’t always go over well.)

And INSIST that along with that a massive BRANDING campaign is necessary.

Why this approach?

If a Japanese company doesn’t put in the effort to establish their brand as the go-to option for this specific product, competitors will seize the opportunity.

Korean businesses, direct-to-consumer Chinese sellers on Amazon and Temu, or American startups (often Asian American with their fingers on the pulse of several cultures and a keen understanding of both) will repackage, remarket, and sell the same product—smarter, cheaper, and better-branded.

These competitors will dominate the market that the Japanese company worked to establish.

Additionally, I stress the importance of local operations: a solid U.S.-based team to handle customer service, shipping, and returns seamlessly because your competition will beat you in price or on the ground so you need to be an all-around.

What Generally Happens Instead:

1. Mediocre Efforts The Japanese project leader, relying on their own assumptions about “the American market,” underfunds marketing and awareness campaigns. They choose lukewarm, ineffective advertising channels that fail to generate visibility. (The moment I hear the words “Antenna shop on Amazon” from a project leader I know we’re circling the drain) The project fizzles before it gains traction. A few years later, a Korean or Chinese company—or an American-based Asian American team—relaunches the same product with better marketing, branding, and pricing. The market becomes saturated with non-Japanese versions of a highly successful “Japanese” item, while the Japanese product is relegated to a niche, high-end, or largely unknown option.
2. Half-hearted Investment The company invests a reasonable budget, and the product sees modest success. However, the parent company doesn’t see the American revenues as attractive enough to commit enough resources to scale. Branding remains secondary, and cheaper competitors cannibalize the market share as in scenario #1.
3. The Easy Option The company opts for a U.S.-based Japanese agency because they speak Japanese and are easier to work with. But these agencies rarely prioritize effective branding or hire high-caliber talent, resulting in a half-baked campaign. The product fails, and the company concludes, “The American market doesn’t like our product. Let’s focus on Asia instead.”
4. Blind Faith in Outsourcing The company hires an expensive, flashy American agency, assuming they’ll deliver the American market on a platter. Without a deep understanding of the product, the company, or the target market, the agency delivers a lackluster campaign. The product flops, further entrenching the belief that “the American market isn’t right for us.”

The Myth of the Monolithic "American Market"

If you’re a Japanese national with a U.S. MBA and you think you “know” the American market, but your understanding treats it as a monolith, you don’t know the American market.

America is vast and diverse. It has everything and everyone.

• Are you targeting the U.S. mass market? If so, what does being Japanese have to do with it?
• Are you aiming for national grocery chains?
• Niche markets? If so, which?
• Are you selling to tweens? Which demographic?

Do you know your target consumer? Their spending habits? Their brand loyalty?

Nine times out of ten, the internal marketing staff of excellent Japanese corporations assume Americans will buy their higher-priced product simply because of its superior quality, and simply because it’s a Japanese product or because of the name of their company which means a lot in Japan and Asia, but nothing at all, or just not enough, in the U.S. market.

So they often neglect branding altogether, falling back on generic, uninspired marketing—like using koto music against a momiji background, embarrassing "gaijin love Kyoto" tropes—that fails to connect with American consumers because “Japanese” isn’t branding.

Showing just how much they don’t understand the U.S. market.

So How Do You Sell In A Market That Doesn't Value Names? (Or Your Brand Specifically)

If Japanese companies can address their branding failures in the U.S., they can finally move past these common pitfalls.

That’s where we come in. We help Japanese businesses navigate the complexities of the U.S. market, ensuring that their superior products achieve the visibility, branding, and success they deserve by not choosing the wrong partners. Or by telling you that you are.

You don’t have to listen to our advice, but at least you can have in writing that the “Amazon Antenna Shop” your team is about to spend USD 35k on isn’t going to answer the question; “Will this sell in the U.S. market” in any significant business-building way, at least not how Japanese companies do it.

Now if you’re a DtoC Chinese company on the other hand.. They make it work because they actually put the work in and aren't just opening vanity branches in the U.S. to say they've got a branch here.

But that's a topic for a whole different article about the REAL reason some Japanese companies open U.S. branches.