Prospects and Challenges of a Foreigner Friendly eCommerce Marketplace in Japan

The growth of foreigners living in Japan and the number of permanent residents is increasing day by day. Along with this trend, foreigner’s friendly product demand also increasing, and to fulfill those demands foreigners' own businesses also increase rapidly, like halal grocery shops and halal restaurants.  Due to rapid technology growth and convenience, people are preferring to buy online. Japanese eCommerce market is the third largest in the world. But the problem is foreigners living in Japan could not find expected products from the existing eCommerce marketplace. Who is selling in halal grocery shops/foreigner-targeted shops also can not properly sell and deliver the product all over Japan due to the high cost of maintaining the eCommerce mark place or limitation of the resources. This study found that a foreigner-friendly e-commerce marketplace is demanding in Japan and the market value is around US$ 1,242 million with 3.75% growth. This study collected responses from foreign entrepreneurs, and consumers in Japan to understand the prospect and challenges as well as studied existing market players to measure the limitations. Also, this study proposes a new foreigner-friendly eCommerce marketplace that can achieve economic and social goals by operating a business in a social business model.