Amazon Opens Japanese Site
T O K Y O, Nov. 1 -- — Amazon.com, the ambitious numberone Internet retailer, unveiled its Japanese site Amazon.co.jp today in an aggressive push to crack open Japan’s cozy bookretailing market.
In its first retailing venture in Asia, Amazon will offer 1.7million titles on its Japanese language Web site, which is nearlyidentical to its U.S. version, but with the tabs for otherproduct lines such as videos, CDs, electronic goods, andgardening tools conspicuously absent.
Amazon.co.jp said it would expand its product line beyond its1.1 million Japanese titles and 600,000 English titles some timeover the next year.
“We’ll do the same kind of things we’ve done in the UnitedStates with electronics, tools, kitchenware and so on,” chiefexecutive Jeff Bezos told Reuters.
Fourth Venture Outside U.S.
The line up was likely to expand with media-based productssuch as CDs and videos coming first, said Amazon’s president inJapan, Junichi Hasegawa, in an interview.
Its fourth site outside the United States will try to tapinto Japan’s estimated 350 billion yen ($3.2 billion) market fore-commerce. In a recent survey of Japan’s Internet users, nearlyhalf said they wanted to buy books or magazines online.
“Amazon has a much more attractive Web site than otherJapanese online book stores and I think they’ll win a greateraudience with a ‘co.jp’ address,” said Masato Araki, analyst atWit Capital Japan.
Others said it would do well, but not remain unchallenged.
“It’s not going to be as easy as the United States,” saidLuigi Limentani, analyst at Nikko Salomon Smith Barney.
Gift-Giving Culture
Amazon said it is already the largest retailer by any measurein Japan, because of the 193,000 Japan-based customers alreadyshipping goods across the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. Web site.
Although Japanese titles cannot be discounted due to thecountry’s intricate book distribution system, Amazon said itwould offer a 30 percent discount on all English and foreignlanguage books and offer free delivery until the end of the year.
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