Japanese companies target China's online shoppers
Japanese companies are capitalising on China's e-commerce boom and targeting Chinese consumers directly via the internet. Chinese shoppers spent around $7bn on Japanese merchandise online in 2015, about as much as was spent by tourists visiting Japan, and the market is forecast to grow to $12.4bn in 2018. According to a recent survey, popular goods include cosmetics, audiovisual and information technology equipment, and food other than snacks. Top reasons to buy online from Japan were authenticity and quality.   

TOKYO -- As the shopping spree here by Chinese visitors shows signs of losing steam, Japanese businesses are taking to the Internet to sell directly to people in China.

Online sales by Japanese merchandisers to shoppers in China totaled about 800 billion yen ($7.03 billion) in 2015 -- about as much as was spent by Chinese visiting Japan. The tally exceeded their U.S.-bound sales by more than two-fifths and was up about 30% from the 2014 figure. The market is seen growing to 1.4 trillion yen in 2018.