<Shopify Merchant Interview Series>
Mon Marché Co., Ltd. runs "Yasai wo MOTTO," a line of shelf-stable soups made with domestic Japanese vegetables. In Part 1, Managing Director Yuji Kono told us how the business grew from physical stores and phone orders into a business where online now carries 70% of sales, and about the company's approach of selling through brand awareness rather than relying on listing ads.
Shopify is the cart system that supports that online business today. Right after the migration, features that had been standard on their Japanese-made cart simply weren't there, and customers got confused by the order in which checkout fields appeared. The team filled in those gaps one by one, patiently, over time.
In Part 2, we bring in Yukiko Takenaka, Manager of the Sales Promotion Section, who handles the actual build and operation of the online site, to hear what the Shopify migration really looked like, how they choose apps, how subscriptions work, and the brand's underlying philosophy.
You can read Part 1 of this interview here.
Three Months to Build on Shopify — Longer to Settle Into Operating It
The cart system behind the "Yasai wo MOTTO" online site. Shopify was the fourth cart the company arrived at. One of Shopify's defining features is that combining templates and apps lets you launch in a relatively short time. In practice, Takenaka says, the build itself was fast.
(Yasai wo MOTTO Online Site)
—— How long did the migration to Shopify take?
Yukiko Takenaka (hereafter, Takenaka) The Shopify build itself actually didn't take that long — I think it took about 3 months to get it up and running. But after that, it took a bit more time before operations settled into a smooth routine.
That's because features that come standard on a Japanese-made cart system turned out to be missing once we actually moved over. We couldn't specify a delivery date and time, and there was no points program at first either. On top of that, our WMS integration didn't feed in the numbers we expected early on. We gradually built those pieces out using various apps after the migration.
It's been a bit over 2 years now since we switched to Shopify, and I'd say it took about 3 to 4 months after the migration before we reached a phase where we could operate it smoothly.
—— Were there any particular difficulties in areas that directly touch customers, like migrating the points program?
Takenaka We were able to migrate points using an app, but it didn't work with subscriptions. And the thing we ran into most was checkout. Customers had a hard time getting used to the flow from the cart screen through to checkout — especially the order in which fields appear. On Japanese sites, the typical order is to enter the orderer's information first, then the shipping address, but on Shopify it was reversed. I think that caused some confusion at first.
We worked through those issues one by one, patiently, using apps and adjusting the flow, changing the wording displayed on screen, and putting together separate guides. Customers have gradually gotten used to it, and I think, especially since more Shopify stores have come online recently, people have gotten fairly accustomed to it by now.
Building It as You Go — a Site That's Still a Work in Progress
—— The current site gives an impression of being very polished, both in its structure and in how the product catalog is presented. How did you direct that?
Takenaka Honestly, it's really been a matter of building it as we go. Take the product pages, for example — we couldn't originally add variant options, so we had to make up for that with an app too. At first it was really hard to follow, and there wasn't anything like display control for the order of options, so we ran into a lot of cases where things ended up in places they shouldn't have.
But as the apps improved, as Shopify itself improved, and as we got a better and better grasp of our own issues, we gradually made things better. It wasn't a case of having everything figured out perfectly from the start.
—— What kind of team handles everything from the build to ongoing operations?
Takenaka Everyone on our in-house e-commerce team works with Shopify to some degree. For the build itself, we brought in two outside partners: a vendor who handles the entire build for a typical e-commerce site, and a company that specializes in Shopify.
Customer support is handled in-house. It's mostly email and LINE, but LINE keeps growing more and more.
—— If 100 represents the ideal, how far along would you say the current site is?
Takenaka I'd still say around 50. We've reached the point where customers can buy, but we want to increase the amount of information available, and how we present that is still nowhere near where it needs to be.
I feel like customers want to know more and more about the products in depth — things like the specific region an ingredient comes from, or personal questions and requests like "I want to give this to someone in this age group." So I'd like to find a clear, easy way to work that kind of information into the site.
(Yasai wo MOTTO Online Site)
Reaching the Places Standard Features Can't: The Criteria for Choosing Apps
Shopify offers a huge number of apps for extending functionality. From payments and shipping to subscriptions and displaying reviews, the platform's basic approach is to fill in anything the standard feature set doesn't cover with an app.
Which apps you choose, and how you combine them, makes a big difference to how usable a site actually is. How do you fill in the fine-grained gaps that the standard feature set doesn't reach? The way a store answers that question reflects its own particular approach to running things.
—— What criteria do you use to choose Shopify apps?
Takenaka I do look at functionality, but since we already have a number of apps installed, I also look at how well each one integrates with the others. I choose apps that work well alongside the ones we're already using, and I also consider integration with our own mobile app.
The RuffRuff 予約販売 app also integrates quite well with our shipping-related apps. It really reaches the places you can't quite get to otherwise — things like pre-order functionality or splitting out different delivery dates, the kind of thing that seems like it should be possible but often isn't. We use it a great deal.
—— "Yasai wo MOTTO" offers a subscription — what app powers that?
Takenaka Shopify's official functionality alone doesn't let you configure all the settings we need, so we use an app to make it work. We were already running subscriptions before we moved to Shopify, and when we migrated, we chose an app that lets customers pick and swap their products each time. Since we have soups in a variety of flavors, rather than sending a fixed set, we wanted something that let customers freely change the quantity and variety themselves.
—— Is there anything you'd like to see improved in Shopify?
Takenaka That would also be subscriptions. Because we've layered in so many features, it's gotten a bit heavy, and we get a fair number of inquiries about how the account page operates. Precisely because we want to put real effort into this area, I feel there's still plenty of room for improvement.
(Yasai wo MOTTO's subscription)
From Performance Ads to Building Brand Awareness
—— Is there anything you're currently working on that's giving you a real sense of traction?
Takenaka Right now, we're shifting away from the typical performance-driven advertising you'd expect from an e-commerce-focused approach, toward activities that build up the brand. As part of that, we've made our own independent deal with a well-known actress, and we're creating content and running events together with her.
Just this month, we held an event with Akiko Kikuchi in Yoga, Tokyo, and had somewhere around 300 to 400 attendees. We also have a radio show on the station InterFM, so we introduce our products at offline events, post about it on Instagram, and cross-promote with exhibitors, InterFM, and Kikuchi herself. It's become a fairly multi-dimensional set of activities.
—— So you yourself are involved in marketing that goes beyond just e-commerce.
Takenaka That's right. Our company has a small headcount, so everyone ends up keeping track of a lot of different things. My own background before this wasn't in e-commerce — it was more in the field of brand marketing, so that's part of what I still handle today as well.
—— On the flip side, are there any challenges you feel with e-commerce?
Takenaka I really feel e-commerce is getting tougher these days. The brand-awareness activities we just mentioned don't translate directly into conversions right away.
We're gradually able to hold events, put out press releases, and get picked up by media, but the question of how to get people from there all the way to actually buying on our e-commerce site — that's still very much a work in progress. When we run surveys, a surprising number of people say they learned about us through a physical store. That's an area we still need to think through further.
Stepping Into the Buyer's Shoes Reveals What You Can't See in Your Own Site
Neither Kono nor Takenaka originally came from e-commerce as a specialty — both got involved through their work. Precisely because of that, they say, it helps to actively step into the role of a buyer yourself. Doing so reveals things you couldn't see before: a site that's hard to use, a trick that makes you buy on impulse, a product that disappoints once it arrives. Each of those becomes a clue for reconsidering your own site.
Kono Since starting this job, I've come to buy everything I need online. In the early days, packages would arrive at home 3 or 4 times a week, and my family would often ask me, "What is this, why did you buy this, you don't even need it."
Takenaka I've also come to use e-commerce far more than I used to. I'd never really used marketplaces before, but I tried using Rakuten and others. While buying, I started noticing things like "this part is hard to buy through" or "this could really be done a bit better."
—— Are there any shops that have stuck with you?
Kono There are definitely times I've bought something on impulse. When an ad shows something like "a PC for 1 yen," I think, that's clever, they got me to buy it. But honestly, what I actually bought didn't last me very long. It was a rechargeable light — it arrived already charged, but once the charge ran out, it couldn't be recharged anymore.
But whether you've actually experienced something like that firsthand or not changes how much weight your words carry. When you think about the things customers care about, you naturally start asking how your own site handles the same thing, and that gives what you say a lot more persuasive power.
An Era Where AI Gets Everyone to a Baseline — Where Products Still Make the Difference
(Yasai wo MOTTO)
—— Finally, what's your view on what brands and e-commerce businesses will need going forward?
Kono Up until now, I think everyone has differentiated themselves through things that took time or required skill when starting e-commerce — landing pages, good photography, coming up with a strong catchphrase or copy.
Recently, as AI has advanced, that's gotten easier. Going forward, I think whichever site you look at, it's going to reach a certain baseline level of quality across the board.
So what we need to focus on really comes down to raising our product strength. Getting people to correctly understand our brand is, first and foremost, the underlying goal, and e-commerce is simply one means to that end. We have to keep pursuing our commitment to the product itself, and push even harder on that going forward.
Switching carts four times, filling in feature gaps with apps, putting real effort into activities that build brand awareness. Every one of these patient, steady improvements has been in service of one thing: delivering the product to customers with integrity. Even as the sales channel and the underlying system have changed, the fundamental approach to selling never has. E-commerce is simply a means to an end. "Yasai wo MOTTO" keeps experimenting, one step at a time, to make sure the product reaches its customers properly.
