Nutrigreen Australia - Case Study
Doing business in Japan – without actually going there
From the Asialink Business Japan Country Starter Pack
As a general rule, Australian exporters who want to break into the Japanese market have to spend plenty of time on the ground in Japan – doing their research and due diligence and, most importantly, building relationships with prospective Japanese clients and partners.
Ray Power is a rare exception to this rule. Mr Power is General Manager of Nutrigreen Australia, a health supplements manufacturer based in Swan Hill, on the Victorian side of the Murray River. Nutrigreen has been successfully exporting its niche health products to Japan for about a decade – yet Mr Power and his executive team have never set foot on Japanese soil.
“We don’t have to spend time on the ground there ourselves,’’ he confirms. Instead, his sales have been initiated mainly through online searches by prospective Japanese customers, which have led them to the Nutrigreen website, and eventually all the way from Japan to Swan Hill.
“’They do a Google search for the type of product that we make, and then they contact us by email. If they’re genuinely interested in pursuing it further, they’ll come to us,” Mr Power says.
All of which is not to say that selling to Japan has been easy for Nutrigreen. Like most others who have succeeded in breaking into the Japanese market, Mr Power emphasises the importance of patience and perseverance.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,’’ he says. ‘’You need to establish a level of trust (with the Japanese), and it takes a lot of time.’’
He says that after initial email contact, it can take months before they even contact you again.
And once they have enough confidence in you to set up the first meeting, more patience is required. “The meetings were very intense. The Japanese are certainly very thorough. They ask a lot of questions, they are very procedure driven. They’ll ask the same question over and over to make sure that they’re clear about the procedure and the way that you do things.
“After you do business you take them out. We took them out to dinner at a local restaurant in Swan Hill. They marvel at the space that we’ve got in this country.”
Sometimes it felt like they were getting nowhere in their dealings with the Japanese. “You might contact them, and they might not contact you back,’’ Mr Power says. “But eventually if they’re interested they’ll come back. And once you establish business relations with them, they’re very loyal.’’
Nutrigreen’s perseverance with the Japanese has been well rewarded, and might have generated a lot more income if it weren’t for production constraints in Swan Hill. The company has established ongoing relationships with five different Japanese distributors, who buy bulk quantities of its principal health supplements – barley grass leaf powder, wheat grass leaf powder and alfalfa leaf powder – for repackaging and branding in Japan.
“We sell it to them in bulk 20-kilogram cartons, and they do the rest,’’ Mr Power says. “We don’t know where it goes when it lands over there. We don’t know how they market it. That’s their business.’’
Happily, Mr Power reports that his Japanese customers are more focused on relationships, trust and loyalty than bargaining and price. “They’ve certainly got a price in mind; they will do their homework on what pricing they need to achieve, but the trust issue is the first hurdle you need to get over,’’ he says.
Looking to expand your knowledge further? Explore other market-leading research & resources by Asialink Business.
www.nutrigreen.com.au