Sustained investment in Mercari US and roughly ¥18.1bn in write-downs (2014)

Not reproduction but reinvention — the discipline overseas expansion demanded

The heart of this decision was to carry the CtoC model established in Japan into the United States — seen as an untapped market — and, even as it piled up huge write-downs, to keep investing in it as a pillar of growth rather than withdrawing. That President Yamada himself stayed long in San Francisco and later even doubled as CEO of the local subsidiary shows he positioned this business not as one overseas venture among many but as the main event. On the other hand, in a US market where established players such as eBay and the habit of face-to-face trade are rooted, the “easy on a smartphone” value that had driven success in Japan was not decisive on its own. Japan’s success — where an untapped market and rapid awareness through television commercials meshed — could not simply be reproduced in an America with different conditions.

Even so, not withdrawing but pulling the US business back to breakeven while revising its investment discipline shows that a listed company carrying growth expectations is asked, again and again, where to apply discipline rather than expand at all costs. Sustained investment in an overseas market is a long endeavour of learning and adapting with no visible right answer; it demands not a simple “reproduction” of the Japanese model but a “reinvention” fitted to local ground. The write-downs, on the order of $164.9M (¥18bn) cumulatively, are a case that left in numbers both that difficulty and the question of how far a success experience can be carried abroad.