Quick tip #29 – Q4 sales and Christmas

TLDR; you’ve still got time.

I’ve done quick tips about the 2 other main holidays in Japan. Golden Week in May and Obon in August. Now the third, New Year. Notice I don’t say “Christmas”. That’s because Christmas is NOT a holiday in Japan. All companies are open on Dec 25th and people go to work as normal. As it happens, it is a day off this year, but that is only because it’s on a Sunday!

Some more useless facts about Christmas in Japan. Dec 25th isn’t THE day. Dec 24th is when it all happens. Couples go out, and people have their Christmas cake at home then. In fact Christmas cakes go on sale on Dec 25th! This is all completely irrelevant information. Just want to highlight that there are differences across countries.

So Q4 is big, but no where near as big as the US and Europe. So categories like toys will still do well, but it’s not as big a gift giving season as in the West. So unlike the US which is banning new sellers until Dec 16th, or the UK that has banned new or low volume sellers from the toy category before Christmas for many years, Japan is completely open. And as there is no early buying season here like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, sales do start to really pick up late. Way into December.

Last year Amazon Japan tried to push the Cyber Monday buying season on customers, but it is still not a cultural purchasing season in Japan. It will likely become more common over the coming years, but for now, don’t sweat about making November.

If you are in for December, you will see more impressions on your listings and so is a good time to start. Obviously a brand new “cold” listing, will take a few weeks to warm up in the Amazon algorithm, and for PPC to really start to show benefits. But more people on Amazon at the end of the year, will still make Dec a good time to start if you wanted to try.