How Japan's Leading Ecommerce Platform Uses NetFUNNEL to Protect Sales During Peak Traffic
NetFUNNEL Expands into Japan's Ecommerce Market with GMO Makeshop
In July 2025, STCLab signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with GMO Makeshop, a leading ecommerce solutions provider in Japan, to accelerate the expansion of NetFUNNEL, its virtual waiting room solution for managing large-scale traffic, into the Japanese market.
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GMO Makeshop Partners with NetFUNNEL to Prevent Server Downtime During Traffic Surges, Improve Customer Satisfaction, and Maximize Sales Opportunities.
GMO Makeshop provides integrated services for building and operating online stores, including domains, hosting, payment processing, advertising, and marketing.
The company has ranked No. 1 in Japan's ecommerce SaaS platform market by annual gross merchandise value (GMV) for 12 consecutive years.
Through its partnership with STCLab, GMO Makeshop offers NetFUNNEL to its customers, providing the technical foundation needed to manage sudden traffic surges and maintain stable, reliable shopping experiences.
NetFUNNEL has already supported various successful ecommerce operations in Japan. GMO Makeshop has also shared its own insights into the solution's effectiveness.
When Is the Most Critical Moment for Ecommerce Businesses?
On February 26, 2026, STCLab participated in an ecommerce trade show in Tokyo, Japan, alongside its local partner, Triton Systems.
The event provided an opportunity to introduce NetFUNNEL and share real-world use cases and implementation benefits with Japanese ecommerce businesses and IT professionals.
At the event, which attracts more than 6,500 ecommerce and IT professionals annually, GMO Makeshop also delivered a presentation based on transaction data from its ecommerce platform.
The presentation highlighted how purchasing patterns differ across industries and why maintaining service availability during peak sales periods is critical to ecommerce success.
The session began with a quiz.
The following graphs illustrate annual transaction trends across five industries: fashion, food, hobbies, consumer electronics, and event services.
Which graph represents the fashion industry?
Let's take a closer look at the answer.
① Consumer Electronics
Graph ① shows significant transaction peaks in March and December. Demand for consumer electronics tends to increase in March, when the new academic and business year approaches in Japan, and in December, when winter bonuses drive consumer spending.
② Event Services
Graph ② shows a sharp increase in transactions during October and November. This trend reflects major year-end promotional events and ticket sales, which tend to generate concentrated demand during this period.
③ Hobbies
Graph ③ shows high transaction volumes from January through March, with another peak during the summer. These patterns reflect increased spending on hobby-related products during the year-end and New Year holiday season, as well as summer vacations.
④ Fashion
Graph ④ shows recurring peaks in March, July, and December. These seasonal fluctuations reflect changes in consumer demand as people prepare for different seasons.
This is the correct answer: the fashion industry.
⑤ Food
Graph ⑤ shows transaction volumes gradually increasing toward the end of the year. This reflects seasonal demand associated with Christmas, year-end celebrations, and special dining experiences such as omakase reservations.
Turn Peak Shopping Demand into an Opportunity, Not a Crisis
As the graphs demonstrate, every industry has critical sales periods when service downtime is simply not an option.
During its presentation, GMO Makeshop emphasized the importance of keeping ecommerce services available when customer interest and purchasing demand reach their highest levels.
Businesses naturally want to maximize sales during these critical periods. However, if their servers cannot handle the sudden influx of traffic and access requests, even the most carefully planned promotions and advertising investments can go to waste.
To address this challenge, GMO Makeshop highlighted the value of adopting a virtual waiting room.
Rather than rejecting customers when traffic exceeds a system's processing capacity, a virtual waiting room manages incoming traffic and allows businesses to continue serving customers without overwhelming their infrastructure.
GMO Makeshop introduced four key benefits of adopting NetFUNNEL.
1. Accommodate Customers Instead of Blocking Them
When incoming traffic exceeds the system's processing capacity, customers are directed to a virtual waiting room rather than being denied access.
The waiting room displays an estimated waiting time, allowing customers to understand when they can enter the service.
2. Prevent Server Downtime
NetFUNNEL controls the rate at which customers enter the service based on its processing capacity.
By managing incoming traffic, ecommerce businesses can maintain stable operations and continue sales even during sudden traffic surges.
3. Deployment in as Little as 30 Minutes
Through the Enterprise Plan offered by makeshop by GMO, businesses can implement NetFUNNEL in as little as 30 minutes.
This enables ecommerce operators to prepare for anticipated traffic surges without lengthy implementation processes.
4. Flexible Short-Term Contracts
NetFUNNEL is also available through short-term contracts for specific sales periods or events.
Businesses can adopt the solution when they expect concentrated traffic, allowing them to manage seasonal demand more efficiently.
A Real Customer Success Story
GMO Makeshop also shared a customer experience involving an online business selling rose seedlings.
The business had previously experienced system failures during payment processing, resulting in numerous orders with payment authorization errors.
After adopting the virtual waiting room, however, the situation changed.
According to the customer:
"Unlike last year, we experienced no system downtime during payment processing and no large volume of orders with payment authorization errors. Thanks to the virtual waiting room, we were able to get through our peak season with almost no customer complaints."
This example demonstrates how managing traffic during critical sales periods can help businesses maintain reliable shopping experiences and reduce operational disruptions.
Don't Avoid Peak Traffic. Be Ready to Welcome It.
The presentation concluded with a clear message:
For ecommerce businesses, high traffic and concentrated purchasing demand should not be viewed as problems to avoid.
Instead, the real question is how to welcome that demand safely and turn it into successful transactions.
A sudden increase in visitors is often a sign of successful marketing, strong customer interest, or an attractive product offering.
However, without the infrastructure and traffic management capabilities to support that demand, valuable sales opportunities can quickly disappear.
Before your next major sales event, why not consider implementing NetFUNNEL, STCLab's virtual waiting room solution?
Whether in Japan, Korea, or anywhere else in the world, STCLab and NetFUNNEL are committed to helping businesses deliver stable, reliable, and fair digital experiences.
Explore NetFUNNEL and prepare your ecommerce service for the next traffic surge.
https://www.makeshop.jp/main/plan/enterprise/traffic-botprotection-solutions/