Exhibiting at a Japanese trade show: the foreign brand's checklist

Japan's biggest trade shows — FOODEX Japan for food and beverage, Tokyo International Gift Show, Beautyworld Japan, Tokyo Game Show — are where Japanese buyers, distributors and press actually show up ready to commit. A well-run booth at one of these events can do more for a market-entry than months of cold outreach. A badly prepared one, or an empty one, wastes the trip entirely. This checklist covers the parts foreign exhibitors most often get wrong.

The one rule that surprises everyone: 搬入日 (move-in day) is absolute

Every Japanese trade show designates a single move-in day (搬入日, hannyū-bi) for exhibitors to deliver booth materials to the venue. Deliveries are expected on that day, labeled clearly with your booth number, and venues generally do not make exceptions for early or late arrivals. If your graphics, POP materials or product samples miss the move-in window — because they're stuck in customs, mislabeled, or shipped to the wrong address — your booth can sit empty for the entire show, right next to competitors who prepared correctly. This single date is the anchor that the rest of your preparation should work backward from.

The 8-week countdown checklist

1. 8 weeks out — book graphics & printing, decide on Japanese materials. Confirm your booth size and layout, and decide now whether your price cards, signage and company profile will be produced in Japanese. This is the highest-leverage decision on the list and the easiest to delay past the point it's useful.
2. 6 weeks out — design booth graphics & POP to Japanese conventions, prepare Japanese price cards. Layouts, claims and price presentation that work in your home market don't automatically translate. Get graphics and point-of-purchase materials designed to what Japanese buyers expect (see below), with pricing shown the way Japanese retail and distribution buyers expect to see it.
3. 4 weeks out — print deadline. This is the last point for standard turnaround. Orders placed after this carry a rush surcharge, and very late orders may not be possible at all depending on the printer's queue for that show.
4. 2 weeks out — ship to venue with booth number labeling, confirm arrival. Materials should be en route to the venue itself, not to a hotel or local contact, labeled with your booth number so venue staff can route them correctly. Get a confirmation that the shipment is tracked to arrive on the move-in day, not before or after.
5. 1 week out — Japanese media kit ready, press release announcing your presence. Have a Japanese-language media kit ready for any journalist or buyer who stops by, and get a press release announcing your show presence into distribution (see the section below on why this pairs naturally with a booth).
6. Show week — a Japanese-speaking contact must be reachable at all times. Whether that's booth staff, an interpreter, or a phone line, someone who can respond in Japanese needs to be reachable throughout the show — for buyer questions, press inquiries, and any last-minute logistics issues.

What Japanese buyers expect at a booth

• Japanese-language price cards and a company profile (会社概要). Buyers expect to read pricing and basic company information in Japanese without having to ask. A 会社概要 sheet — the standard Japanese company-profile format — signals you've prepared for this market specifically, not just shipped over your home-market materials.
• Business-card culture. Bring more business cards than you think you'll need, presented and received with both hands, and expect to be handed cards in return that deserve a moment's attention before they're put away.
• Humble, factual claims. Superlatives that read as confident marketing elsewhere — "the best," "revolutionary," "No. 1" — tend to hurt credibility with Japanese buyers rather than help it. Specific, factual claims about what the product does land better than broad claims about how good it is.

Pair the booth with a press release

Announcing your presence at a Japanese trade show is a natural news hook — it gives Japanese trade media and buyers a reason to look for your booth before the show even opens, and a reason to write about you after. The release needs to be written natively in Japanese, following local press-release conventions, to be picked up rather than skipped as visibly translated. A booth without a release is a missed multiplier; a release with nothing to point to is a missed opportunity in the other direction. The two work best together.

What it costs

Japan PR Launchpad's Trade Show Japan Kit starts at €3,500 (≈$3,900) and covers design, printing in Japan, and delivery to the venue timed for your move-in day — so nothing depends on international shipping or customs timing. Kits ordered within 4 weeks of a show carry a rush surcharge, reflecting the compressed printing and delivery window. A press release announcing your show presence is €980 (≈$1,100), priced the same as any other release we distribute.

Frequently asked questions