Hi there. I am currently reviewing Magento for a Japanese e-commerce site. My client currently uses a Japanese Payment Gateway and I notice Magento only currently supports Authorize.net (and one more). My question is, are other members with Japanese sites using Authorize.net or have you authored alternative Japanese-friendly gateway plugins to go with your existing gateways?
And what about the merchant accounts? Any issues there with Japanese merchant accounts and Authorize.net? As far as I can see this is the biggest issue at the moment. Any help/feedback greatly appreciated.

And what about the merchant accounts? Any issues there with Japanese merchant accounts and Authorize.net? As far as I can see this is the biggest issue at the moment. Any help/feedback greatly appreciated.

So in testing Magento, I am sure a lot of people will load up a demo store.  I did such, and had a problem as I set my base currency as Yen.  If you load the demo store they have the prices set at 19.99 or something like that.  Well that doesn’t work well if you select Yen as your default currency during the install.

I posted a forum topic here and the file.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/7101/

Hope this helps.

Regards,

CKD

Ok, so with the 1st non-beta release about to come out. I am going to start my guy on the translations.  I know that Rack has already put a great dent into them, but I see it as a time to start getting organized and combining both sides into action here.

We are a combination of many countries at crystalkoi, and I do most of the development, so my guy who is Japanese will report to me.  I will upload the translations we finish to the new menu system, and I would like to ask that everyone to do the same if they can. 

I know Rack that you have your site in Japanese.  But if we can create a common link between them that would be great.  I often see a lot of open source projects in Japan that try to branch away from the original source and I hope that doesn’t happen here.  I can see the need to keep documents and menu system’s in the users 1st language, but if we can keep the link between other users and Japanese users, I think it will be a better outcome.

So lets link up people, and get going on this.  Rack, you have done the most work, so if you can give us a little update here, that would be great.

Regards,

CKD

As far as I can see, there is no recommendation for a Magento hosting service in Japan in the official list yet.

I looked a little bit around on the pages of the “rentarusaaba” and until now I couldnt find anything promising..

Does anybody have some recommendations

Just a quick post here, for people who are interested, we have started a check list.  If you would like to be a part of the translation efforts, pm me with an email address and I will add you to the list.
Here is a link to the public view of the list, Magento-Ja
Special thanks to Rack for jumping ahead and getting files translated.
Regards,
CKD

So as I watched the Magento tour vids, I was blown away by the function of both the front end and back end.

I currently develop a lot of zen-carts for both shopping carts and showcase sites.  I love the zen-cart team and the community.  I think they are all great guys/girls(Kim), but when I see Magento, the feel is just great.  I am really suprised to see it as open source, as it feels more commercial.  I just wonder what the Zen-Cart team will do to step up to the challenge of Magento.  Will Magento be able to hang with Zen-Cart when it comes to security?  Will Zen-Cart step up its functions and design to match or exceed Magento? 

Either way, I have to do what is best for my customers and support who gives me that best option.  Only time will tell, but until then, its time to get my hands dirty with Magento and see what it can and can’t do. 

Also Zen-Cart Japan has, as I feel, taken the wrong direction and almost developed themselves into a corner of sorts.  For a while we had planned on trying to turn the Japanese development of Zen-Cart in a different direction, but with projects, and trying to develop a language pack that can work in Japanese and be easily installed by people who don’t deal with code, that well, has been a challenge( more of time than, ability).  Our customers come 1st and so our development for all the users of Zen-Cart has come to a halt. 

I think its great that Magento has provided the ability to creat groups like this, where more than one group of developers can get together with the same focus to get things out there for everyone to use.

Until next time,
Shaun Ward
CKD