Japanese consumers are often said to be
difficult to please, with high expectations.
It is not only about the language issue, and this is likely to be one
reason why many multi-national companies or individuals find it a challenge to
enter and penetrate the Japanese market, which is regarded as attractive due to
its size, stability and maturity in many industries.
If you know their expectations and what
they regard as “high quality products and services”, meeting their needs, it is
quite possible to succeed in make market entry and penetration in the Japanese
market.
1. Durable
and indestructible
Japanese consumers expect products to be
durable and indestructible, from clothes and toys to home electronics and
automobiles. This is probably what we
all know as “high quality products” and their expectations are maybe the
highest in the world.
Should clothes start to come apart by
little or screw of devices start to get a little loose, consumers would
usually regard them as defects and may well ma
2. Easy
to use and convenient
Easy to use and convenience has been what
Japanese companies been strong at, and this has been a key feature and
differentiator in Japan. This is a
popular value-added feature in Japan, not only for products themselves but also
for packages.
Great examples are abundant in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods). Many canned food are of easy-to-open cans, which are just like opening a canned coke and therefore there is no need for a can opener.
There are variety of Natto (Japanese food made from soy beans) packages
to make consumers easy to pour sauce into the container without getting their
hands dirty.
This concept is applied in such products as
drugs, too, and easy to take medicines are often a feature. Many OTC (over the counter) drugs are differentiated
not only by efficacy but also how it is easy to take/swallow (e.g. in power,
made sweet for children), as well as how quickly the medicine starts to work.
3. Same
appearance and size
Japanese consumers do not accept products
with even a little irregularity in appearance and size, even for things such as
fruits and vegetables. So, even fruits
and vegetables sold in Japan are all of “perfect” shape, and size, packed very
neatly. Should they be “imperfect” in
shape and size they are neglected during picking and packing processes in farms
and factories.
This is why crisps you would see in the
west are not found in Japan. Each piece
of crisps is of different sizes which are not acceptable to Japanese
consumers. That is why many of the
crisps sold in Japan are made “artificially” from potato ingredients, all in
the same size and shape. And, some are
put in a tube-shaped container, emphasizing uniform size and shape.
Should the products be imperfect even by a
degree not noticeable by the majority unless being told, they are sold as what
we call “class B products” or in Japanese B級品. These are sold in separate
channel with discount price. Such
products range from Kimono and furniture to bread.
When Japanese consumers expects all
products the same in appearance, it is not a surprise that they would never
accept foreign substances in the products they buy and use. Should they find any foreign substances such
as hair in drugs for example, they would regard drugs as “low quality” in the
similar way as “imperfect appearance” mentioned above - they would question the
critical quality of efficacy. In such a
case it is reported to the manufacturer as “defects”.
4. Perfect
finishing
Japanese consumers expect products and
architectures to be of perfect finishing even at details. This is not only for devices that Japanese
companies are strong at. In the case of
drugs, even those with a little spot or scratch on tablets that human eyes
cannot detect (and thus detected by video inspection) are regarded as “defects”
though it has nothing to do with efficacy thus removed from the production
line.
This is the same for packages, too. Even just a slight imperfection in package
printing of drugs are regarded as “defect” and removed from the product
line. Japanese pharmacists and patients
would question the quality including efficacy of drugs should the package is not
100% imperfect in their standard.
It is the same for architecture. A Japanese person in construction industry
visited a very famous modern architecture in Australia which he was extremely
impressed at. However, when he saw that
lower part of a concrete wall finish is “rough”, he said “Gosh! How rough is this finishing. This is never accepted in Japan!”
5. Sophisticated
Consumer
electronics is probably the good example of this. When large, relatively bulky portable audio
were popular in the North American market, small, compact and sophisticated
ones were developed and marketed for the Japanese market. Small and compact size has been a key feature
in products such as digital camera and mobile phones, too.
Colour
variation is also what Japanese consumers tend to like and expect. Thus for consumer electronics (AV devices,
digital camera, mobile phone), and clothes and bags/shoes, there tend to be so
many colour variations. There have been abundant
colour variations in recent small cars by Japanese companies. Many of the colours are quite sophisticated,
similarly to consumer electronics,
Sophistication
is also applied to food and drinks. In
Japan, “subtle sweetness” is preferred in Japanese and western sweets and
beverages including cakes, yoghurt, pudding, cookies, chocolates, Japanese
dumplings and juice. In making bread,
they always sift flour so that the baked bread would be of fine texture. This is why sweet buns in Japan are rather like cakes in the west. Coarse-textured food is not accepted in Japan.
One more thing about the Japanese consumers…
Japanese
consumers also always expect “something new”.
This will
be the topic of the upcoming article.
