Marketplace giants like Rakuten and Zozo, local department stores and foreign e-tailers are battling for supremacy in Japan’s lagging but lucrative online fashion market.

About 80 percent of Forever 21′s new collection, which will launch in the fashion-crazy country Tuesday via online sales and a pop-up store in central Tokyo, will be developed by local partner Adastria Co., Japan’s third-largest apparel maker.

Christine Edman, executive officer of Japanese e-commerce site Zozo, talks about what makes the country’s consumers tick, and how the fashion landscape is set to shift in the years ahead.

Online fast fashion behemoth will open its first ever permanent physical store on Sunday, setting up shop in one of Tokyo’s most-popular areas as it seeks to live up to a lofty valuation that’s been shaken by slowing sales growth and concerns about its environmental and social impacts.

The move is part of the Japanese retailer’s strategy to shift its focus to its highly-profitable convenience store unit, 7-Eleven Japan Co., according to local sources.

Insiders say change is long overdue in Japan’s vibrant but rigid magazine industry where several iconic titles have folded despite print media being more insulated here than elsewhere.

A pandemic-induced camping boom boosted global sales for Japanese fashion labels with a functional edge, but has it cemented performance wear as a long-term fashion staple?

Growth in the men’s cosmetics market in Japan has been attributed to the pandemic and wider use of video calls and online social gatherings.