Web design and development for Japanese businesses

What a Japanese site has to get right

Japanese visitors read dense pages, check the company behind a site and expect familiar forms. A Western layout translated into Japanese often feels thin and untrustworthy. The build has to account for typography, trust content and local form habits from the first wireframe.

Online stores: payments, tax and legal pages

Card payment alone loses buyers. Japanese shoppers also use konbini (convenience store) payment, PayPay, bank transfer and carrier billing. Prices to consumers are normally shown including consumption tax, 10% standard and 8% reduced for certain food items, and the qualified invoice system affects what a business buyer expects on a receipt.

• A disclosure page under the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions (特定商取引法に基づく表記): seller name, address, contact, prices, shipping, payment and return terms.
• A privacy policy that names the data collected, in line with APPI. The Personal Information Protection Commission publishes the rules.
• Payment methods your payment provider supports in Japan. Stripe, for example, documents konbini and PayPay support.
• Receipts and invoices that can carry a qualified invoice registration number when you are registered.

These are check-with-your-lawyer items. We build the pages and fields, and you confirm the wording.

Platforms we use for Japanese sites

Other build pages cover website design, website redesign and ecommerce development.

Language versions, domains and search setup

Every page carries lang set to ja, a ja-JP hreflang pair when another language exists, and a title and description written by a native speaker. A .jp domain from JPRS needs a contact address in Japan. Brands without one launch on a .com with a /ja/ folder. Yahoo! JAPAN search uses Google's results, so one clean technical setup serves both. For rankings work see our SEO page for Japan.

How a project runs from India

1. Short callOne call in Japanese afternoon hours. You get a fixed quote within one working day.
2. Design and copy planWireframes first, with a native-language editor slot in the schedule.
3. Build with weekly demosA single lead, a written update each week and a staging link you can open.
4. Launch and handoverYou own the domain, hosting accounts and code. Date launches around Golden Week and year-end closures.

Japan is 3.5 hours ahead of India, so 10:30 in Pune is 14:00 in Tokyo. Our team never claims an office in Japan; the work is remote.

Foreign brands entering Japan

A site for a foreign brand must answer questions a domestic company never gets asked. Who is the seller in Japan? Where do returns go? Is the product approved for sale here? Which language will support be in? Visitors look for those answers before they pay, and the legal disclosure page for online sellers needs them anyway.

We help structure a Japanese version of your site: language folders, hreflang, yen pricing with tax shown, Japanese contact details and the legal pages. Registering a company, importing goods and product approvals are outside our scope and need a Japanese lawyer or tax adviser.

Price

Public pricing starts at $1,500 per project and $30 an hour, with a fixed quote after the call. Page count, number of payment methods, custom features and language versions move the price. See the website cost guide and the Shopify store cost guide, or use the contact page.