TikTok Shop's layout in the Japanese market is accelerating. Recently, the platform officially opened the self-registration channel for the Japanese POP store, but it is limited to merchants who use overseas warehouses for delivery. This change sends a clear signal: TikTok Shop is promoting its deep cultivation in the Japanese market with higher logistics standards.
At present, TikTok Shop Japan supports two logistics methods: cross-border direct mail and overseas warehouse delivery, but merchants can only choose one of the two. Among them, merchants who choose overseas warehouses must ship from Japan, with faster logistics response and better experience. This also means that sellers must not only consider front-end sales, but also lay out local warehousing and after-sales service capabilities in advance.
Why is the Japanese market worth betting on?
As the world's third largest e-commerce market, Japan's e-commerce scale has exceeded 22 trillion yen, and it is expected that the proportion of e-commerce retail will exceed 15% in 2026. At the same time, TikTok has more than 30 million monthly active users in Japan, of which more than 70% of users will actively search for products after watching short videos, and their willingness to consume is extremely strong.
Unlike traditional platforms such as Amazon and Rakuten, TikTok Shop quickly seizes traffic high ground with the "content + e-commerce" model. It uses algorithm recommendations instead of keyword searches, which is more in line with the consumption habits of young users who "buy by looking", especially in the fields of beauty, fashion and daily necessities.
Entry threshold and logistics selection
Japan station POP stores have certain requirements for merchants' operating experience. They must have operating experience on platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay, and the corporate entity must be legal and compliant. Individual households are not supported for the time being. Each store is required to pay a deposit of 70,000 yen.
In terms of logistics, TikTok Shop encourages sellers with local warehousing capabilities to adopt the overseas warehouse model, especially in high-priced items, large items and holiday peak season stocking. However, Japanese consumers have extremely high requirements for quality and after-sales service, and the return rate is even three times higher than that in the European and American markets. Therefore, if sellers choose the overseas warehouse delivery model, they must simultaneously consider the local after-sales service plan.
This is also the key point that U-Speed Japan return warehouse can provide support. As a service provider focusing on reverse logistics, U-Speed has a return warehouse in Japan, which can provide cross-border sellers with local return quality inspection, return destruction and return to Hong Kong warehouse services, helping merchants to improve the after-sales closed loop and avoid damaging the rating or user experience due to low efficiency in return processing. For TikTok Shop sellers who use overseas warehouses for delivery, this kind of localized after-sales solution is particularly important.
Cold thinking in the content e-commerce boom
Japanese users are very sensitive to logistics timeliness and after-sales response. Even a slight delay or product discrepancy may affect the store rating. Therefore, under the content e-commerce wave that seems to be "traffic is king", cross-border sellers who can really take root in the Japanese market are often those brands that have worked hard on both content capabilities and supply chain strength.
The open registration of TikTok Shop provides a new growth entrance for cross-border merchants, but if they want to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive Japanese market for a long time, they cannot do without in-depth polishing of "cold chain" links such as local warehousing and return processing. The Japanese return warehouse service provided by U-Speed is an important part of helping merchants to stabilize the rhythm at the back end.
