Louis Vuitton was the first multinational luxury house to open its own shop-in-shops in Japan, without the help of a Japanese distributor. This strategy had become an efficient economic and commercial business model in the luxury market. In the 1970s and 1980s, foreign firms had manufactured and distributed their products by licensing. When Louis Vuitton decided to opt for a controversial strategy and to establish its own subsidiary, the company turned out to be a pioneer. It decided to export products from France to Japan.