Q1. How effective is an English website?
A. If you only have your website in Japanese, the potential users to your website are limited to only those who can read Japanese texts; approximately 74 million people. On the other hand, according to Global Internet Statistics, there are as many as 290 million people who read English who go online. This means just by having your website localized in English would increase the number of your potential customers by approximately 400%.
Q2. Is it possible to do online business without having an office in the U.S.?
A. Yes. As a matter of fact, most American companies do not care too much about where your company is physically located; because of geographical size, they are used to doing business remotely. American companies value your products/ services much more than your physical location.
Q3. What is the most common payment method in the U.S. market?
A. Credit Card payment is the most frequently used method for American buyers. Online or offline, it is the most popular way to make payments. American users do not hesitate to use their credit cards when they make online purchases, so your website can achieve tremendous success in the U.S. market.
Q4. Do most American web users have broadband connections?
A. According to Eurotechnology.com, U.S. has the highest number of people with broadband internet access. However, the penetration rate of broadband Internet access (ADSL, Cable, and T1) is still less than 50% of total internet users. This means you need to develop your English website having narrow band users in mind.
Here are current user estimates for few countries:
* USA: 38 million broadband users
* Japan: 33.8 million broadband users
* Germany: 26.5 million broadband users
* UK: 21 million broadband users
* Italy: 15.5 million broadband users
Q5. How much would it cost to have a website targeted toward the U.S. market?
A. Please
contact us for a quote on the project. We will send you a check list about your target market, your competitors, your differentiation from competitors, business objectives in terms of "success metrics" (i.e., how you will measure success), examples of other sites with design aspects you may want on your website, and other features and functions you may like to include.
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Q6. Do you provide a hosting plan for English website?
A.
Yes. We have hosting plan specifically designed for websites in English. With our hosting, all server and database settings are adjusted for English encoded websites.
Q7. Do you help us communicate with English speaking users?
A. Yes. We provide
English customer support service. With the service we translate emails from your English speaking users into Japanese and pass them to you. You simply reply to those emails in Japanese. We then translate your messages into English. In most cases, the process takes less than 24 business hours and the best part is, it would be cheaper than hiring an in-house English speaking customer support agent.
