[AdverTimes掲載コラム]Part 1: The Instagram I downloaded just to view changed my life!?
Hello to everyone who always visits
I'm Aya, a designer and brand owner.
Starting January 2024, I was given a much-appreciated opportunity
I will be contributing a column to 「AdverTimes.（Adotai）」 , the advertising industry's news & information platform operated by Sendenkaigi.
I plan to mainly write on the theme of "value".
Since this is a column that includes my own personal experiences,
I hope to keep it informal and make it content that offers new insights and discoveries to many people.
January will be the first time.
I've taken a look back at the "path to entrepreneurship" that many people have asked me about.
We'd love to hear your feedback❣
Introducing articles featured in Adver Times (Ad-tai)
Nice to meet you. I’m Aya Inamoto, and I run a business without a physical store that sells two brands—jewelry and accessories—exclusively on Instagram. I started this style of business six years ago. I left my position as an executive assistant at a manufacturer, where I had worked for about two years, and went independent to start the business.
Instagram, which is now said to have over 30 million MAUs domestically, hadn't become as widespread in Japan at that time. The phrase "インスタ映え" (Instagrammable) was chosen for the New Words and Buzzwords Awards in 2017, so I think it was still before widespread adoption.
Before the shopping feature was implemented, there was a time when the idea of buying from social media simply didn't exist. Even now, six years later, when I say "I run my business only on Instagram," I'm often asked, "What got you started?" and "How can you sell products without a storefront?"
Six years ago in Japan, people on social media were starting to get bored with Facebook, and it was about the time when everyone was saying, "Maybe Instagram is next—what will it be like?" Meanwhile, overseas, including the U.S., Instagram and Snapchat were sharing the spotlight in popularity.
Products that became popular overseas arrive in Japan five years later!
These days, with the spread of the internet and the like, things have been accelerating, so it feels like the time lag keeps getting shorter. Still, having been born and raised overseas as a child, I had the sense that products that became popular abroad would reach Japan about five years to several years later. I thought Instagram or Snapchat would probably catch on in Japan after a while, and I casually downloaded Instagram just to browse.
I found the way people connected laterally based only on shared interests, hobbies, or goals fascinating. At the time in Japan, information exchange was dominated by Ameba Blog, but I was struck by how convenient Instagram was — you could get the information you wanted just from photos — and thought, "this is interesting." I posted a photo of an accessory I had bought overseas, and I received lots of comments saying, "I want one too." There were many women with similar tastes and sensibilities. So I suggested, "Since some of you want different colors too, let's split the shipping costs — anyone else interested?" ...and that, in fact, was the start of the business.
At first we didn't set out to start a business, but "as a result of close communication among people who liked the same things, a need emerged and it became a business," so it...
The first thing I was careful about was handling payments. To avoid any financial disputes and because I didn’t want to exchange personal information via DM, I initially used Mercari’s platform. At that time, before self-built shop sites became popular and with high selling fees + payment fees, I used Mercari and Instagram to raise funds for creating our own shop site. I shared photos and videos on Instagram and had customers complete payment on Mercari. Mercari has a “request feedback” feature after delivery, so we asked customers to post reviews on Instagram, creating a flow between the two. Since it was already common overseas to watch videos and then buy on Instagram, we focused on posting videos on Instagram to make viewers feel as if they were holding the real product. The shop launched under the name Kururīru as a specialty bridal accessories store. Bridal items have steady demand, and because brides share many beautiful photos and videos taken by professional photographers, soon-to-be brides can see the latest trends via video even faster than in magazines — so Instagram was a great fit. At the same time, I got completely hooked on Instagram, binged videos from overseas Instagram marketing YouTubers, joined an overseas Instagram marketing school to exchange the latest information within the community, and there I learned for the first time that Instagram is entirely “governed by the algorithm,” so I set out to study the algorithm thoroughly.
In the Japanese market, other people's "seal of approval" often serves as the starting point for purchases.
This is true of any business: it's not enough to simply adopt foreign methods wholesale; you always need to localize. You may have heard it before: there's the "sinking ship joke" about what to say to passengers from different countries when a luxury liner is about to sink. I felt this applies exactly to selling. The captain tells the Americans, "If you jump you'll be a hero," tells the French, "Never jump into the sea," and to the Japanese he says, "You all already jumped!" Like that joke, I think Instagram is exactly the platform that covers this. Buyers communicate closely with sellers, inspect everything thoroughly via photos and videos, and—crucially—see both "someone's candid impression" and "someone else clearly enjoying it"; only with the reassurance that it's safe to follow others do they decide to buy.
"If so many people like it, and so many people own it, then my instinct that this is good must be right" — that kind of stamp of approval was a major key point. In "communication with the seller," it's not just two-way interaction; when endorsements come from three or more directions, customers are much more likely to make a purchase.
Furthermore, by using Instagram as a showcase to engage in broad communication, guiding people to LINE@, responding to each person individually, and then directing them to the shopping site, we established a route that completely removes the need for any SEO measures. Convinced that once put into a manual this approach can be used by anyone regardless of the product, we tried the same steps that succeeded with accessories on apparel, jewelry, and home decor, and found that they all resulted in sales. Because this method of "cultivating fans" only requires time, it can develop a brand into something valuable irrespective of price.
At the time, because I was receiving requests for SNS consulting—something that was almost nonexistent back then—I was also simultaneously preparing an SNS e-commerce school business, which was nearly complete. Based on how platforms have changed over time, I believed that something would soon emerge to surpass Instagram, and that businesses relying on Instagram would be gone within ten years. So I decided to focus on the business of building brands, which would still exist twenty years from now. Teaching people how to use social media can be done by others, but I believed there would be greater demand in the future for people who can teach how to create brand value and scale after starting a small business. In 2024, I finally reached that stage.
It was in 2020 when my Instagram business gained traction and I quit my company job to focus fully on the venture. With many people restricted from going out and having no choice but to seek entertainment on social media, Instagram seemed to spread faster than anyone could have imagined. Until then, selling high-priced items online without meeting customers in person had required considerable time and effort, but around a certain point people’s awareness and habits changed, and contactless retail was accepted surprisingly smoothly.
And the next challenge was to give value to RADIANN, a jewelry brand featuring moissanite — an ethical, lab-grown gemstone that was still largely unknown in Japan. We were in the process of establishing a contactless sales business, but as it became easy for individuals to start businesses on social media, we began receiving many questions and inquiries. A motley assortment of individual shops kept appearing and disappearing. It’s very easy to start something.
But what mattered was How to Win. Where to Win. How to win. Where to win. And whether we could give it value, avoid being dragged into price competition, and continue to raise our brand value. It was about creating that invisible thing called "value" — what exactly is "value"? And then a shocking incident occurred.
To be continued in Part 2! Thank you for reading to the end.
ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー ー
If you have any orders or questions, please contact us.
When you register for our official LINE@
Please feel free to consult our concierge 🥰
