Makuake for foreign brands: how an overseas brand gets on Makuake and launches well

Makuake describes itself as a "support purchase" service for new products and experiences. Backers pay first, the campaign closes, and the maker then delivers. For the buyer it feels less like donating and more like pre-ordering from a curated shop of things that are new to Japan.

That is exactly why overseas brands use it. People come to Makuake to look for something new, so a product nobody in Japan has heard of starts with an audience instead of from zero. A campaign also gives you things a market report can't: real orders in yen, the price and set Japanese buyers actually chose, questions and comments in Japanese, and a public result you can show retailers afterwards.

Two things Makuake is not. It is not a donation site, so backers expect a working product, a delivery date and Japanese support. And in our experience it is a weak fit for a product that is already widely sold in Japan, because the page has much less to say about what is new.

As of November 2026, Makuake's guidelines for project owners say it may refuse an application from a foreign corporation without a branch in Japan, and from an applicant who lives outside Japan. "May" is not "will", but in practice it means most overseas brands do not apply on their own.

There are also practical reasons to have a Japanese company in the owner's seat. The project owner is the seller to Japanese backers. It receives the payout, answers backers in Japanese, delivers within the period stated on the page, and under Makuake's guidelines must refund backers if it cannot deliver in time. It also has to make sure the product can legally be sold in Japan, for example PSE marking for electrical products where it applies.

The three routes onto Makuake

1. A Japanese partner that holds your Japan rights runs the project in its own name. This is the route we see most often. The partner imports, owns the backer relationship in Japan and usually continues to Amazon, Rakuten and retail afterwards.
2. Makuake's own partner program. In August 2023 Makuake announced a Global Official Partner Program that matches makers from English-speaking, Chinese-speaking and Korean markets with selected Japanese companies, which then run the project with a Makuake curator advising.
3. Your own Japanese entity or branch, if you already have one and can staff Japanese support.

Whichever route you take, agree in writing who is the project owner, who owns the backer data, who holds inventory, who sets the price, and what happens after the campaign closes. If the partner is asking for exclusive distribution, those answers belong in the same contract.

Makuake reviews every project page before it goes live, including claims checked against Japanese law. A translated Kickstarter page rarely passes that review well, and it rarely sells. These are the six things we rebuild first.

1. One message in the headline. On an overseas travel stroller launched by a company we support, the platform first said the feature-list page "won't sell". The page was rebuilt around one message: it folds in five seconds. The headline, "one stroller for the whole trip", came from interviews with about ten Japanese parents, who said they hate owning two strollers.
2. A short video near the top. The biggest regret one Japanese launch team told us about was using the brand's still key visual instead of a video. Buyers kept asking what the product actually does.
3. Japanese voices before overseas reviews. A few Japanese testers carry more weight than a hundred English reviews.
4. Only claims you can prove. Makuake's guidelines prohibit misleading representations under the Premiums and Representations Act. Leave out "world's first" unless you have evidence ready for the review.
5. Prices that follow Japanese rules. Prices shown to consumers include consumption tax, and Makuake's guidelines say a discount shown against a regular price requires a real commitment to sell at that regular price for a substantial period. Design the early-bird ladder with that in mind.
6. A delivery date you can keep, with the risks stated. Late delivery beyond the stated period can mean refunds.

One more rule matters for brands planning other channels at the same time. Makuake's guidelines say the rewards may not be sold outside Makuake until every backer has received theirs. Plan Amazon Japan and Rakuten for after delivery, not during the campaign.

Makuake's own guide gives a striking number: of projects that reached 30% of their target within 24 hours of opening, 95% succeeded. A fast start puts a project in front of people browsing new launches and rankings, and that brings in buyers who have never heard of the brand.

The overseas travel stroller is a good picture of a strong first day. It opened on Makuake on October 31, 2026. The first 20 units at the earliest price sold out in 9 minutes. Within five days it had 41 buyers, about ¥3.1M, and a place in the platform's top 5. Before launch, close to 30 people had told the team they would definitely buy, and more than ten said they had waited two years for it to reach Japan. The first day was decided before the page went live.

A practical rule follows from this. Estimate how much your list can bring in on day one, then set the target so that day one covers at least 30% of it:

• Day-one estimate = list size × share of the list you expect to buy on day one × average order
• Target ≤ day-one estimate ÷ 0.3

Another Makuake launch shows the scale a large list can reach. For Omi, an AI wearable from the US, Eifer acted as the negotiator with the brand and connected it with demand in Japan, working with a Japanese partner. The pre-launch under the Japan-facing name "AIomi" gathered 11,000 pre-registrations, and the campaign made the Makuake rankings, with ¥37,975,034 from 1,597 supporters according to the Makuake project page.

Cera Plus, a portable espresso machine from Zhuhai, China, with 70+ patents, had struggled to win deals in Japan. We fully localized it, rebuilt the brand story for Japanese buyers and validated it on Makuake. It reached nearly ¥18M in sales in the first month and was featured in MonoMagazine and Goods Press.

The other lesson came from our own mistake. Years ago we sold a Mongolian ger tent before checking samples, and ended up refunding about ¥20M in pre-sales. Since then, sample checks and import checks are built into our process. On Makuake this matters twice over, because the project owner carries the delivery promise in Japan.

And we are selective. For every 100 overseas manufacturers we shortlist, we sign with two or three. A Makuake campaign only works when the product, the price and the partner fit at the same time.