Earlier this month, on July 2nd and 3rd, the 1st E-Commerce & Mail Order DXPO Sapporo ’26 was held at Access Sapporo. While DXPO has previously been hosted in major metropolitan areas with high expected turnouts—such as Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka—it is now expanding into regional cities, making this the very first event of its kind in Sapporo.

Despite its name, “Access Sapporo” is not the most easily accessible location via public transportation. However, thanks to the large number of exhibitors and visitors, the event turned out to be much more bustling and lively than I had anticipated. As usual, our booth had the most modest decoration in the venue, but we were delighted to welcome several visitors who stopped by and eagerly asked questions about m19, our Amazon ads auto-optimization solution. I was also incredibly happy that past business partners and my former MBA classmates happened to spot our booth and dropped by to say hello.

Participating in this event made me realize once again that the vast majority of clients in regional cities operate with smaller advertising budgets. For them, m19 autopilot (our tool tailored for smaller budgets) serves as the primary entry point. Since the management and support for m19 autopilot are transitioning to m19’s global headquarters starting this month, some clients seemed a bit anxious when I shared this update. Yet, even with smaller budgets, many of them shared a strong desire to improve their current Amazon ads without spending too much manual effort, saying, “We have the knowledge because we’ve done so much manually, but we want to optimize it hands-free.” This led to a wealth of great questions and discussions.

Reflecting on what we can do as a company, I renewed my commitment to growing SOPHOLA in this “second founding phase,” ensuring we can empower a wide range of clients regardless of their advertising or overall budget sizes.

In closing, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone I met at this event for providing such valuable insights.

Masaki Iino
Founder & CEO
SOPHOLA, Inc.