Made in Japan?

[lowleg26]

I've been wondering this for a while, so maybe some of our Japanese residents and J-transplants can help me out.

Is there any kind of push by the public or any organization to get people in Japan to buy Japan made products? uzzled:

In the States it isn't uncommon to see or hear people voicing support for buying American made goods over imported goods. Sometimes this is over quality issues (which aren't always founded in truth) and sometimes its over workers rights issues in undeveloped nations. Either way, the support is there and is (usually) visible. Personally, I prefer to buy products from developed nations only (ie: US, Japan, UK, Germany, etc, etc), but, despite the rather large amount of public support for American manufacturing in the US, it can be a real pain in the ass to find 'homegrown' products.

I guess people here prefer cheap 'shit' as opposed to moderately priced 'stuff'. :dunno:

Back to the question:

• Is there a visible and public push for Japanese consumers to buy Japanese products?
• Are these products widely available?
• Is it a point of pride to "buy Japanese"?
• Is there a huge difference between the price of a Japanese product and an imported version of the same product?
• If you want to find a Japan made version of specific products (shoes, for example) are they easy to find, or do you have to do a research project to even get a clue where they are?

Also, if you know of any stores or websites that deal in "Made in Japan" products, please list or link to them here. I'm specifically looking for any place that would sell Japanese made clothing and shoes. But any info is appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any and all responses! :bow-pray:

 

[guy]

From time to time this issue comes up. Much of it has to do with quality control problems in China, such as when there are reports of Chinese food (that is exported to Japan, eg: rice) is contaminated with unwanted chemicals. Then you will see some people push for domestically grown/made goods. But in reality, supermarkets continue to stock imported produce, and people continue to buy them.

Interestingly enough, there is now a huge wave of Chinese people coming to Japan, not for tourism, but specifically to buy Japanese electronics (rice cookers, water boilers, etc; all of which have perceived higher quality than Chinese-made counterparts). Ironically, some Japanese electronics are actually made in China, though one could argue that Japanese companies employ higher quality control.

I haven't seen any significant indication of this "Made in Japan" incentive applied to clothing. There are certainly Japan-only brands that are very popular, but only because of seasonal styles. Those brands go in and out of fashion relatively quickly, with no particular influence by country of origin. Keep in mind, even popular brands like Uniqlo are largely made in China -- though again, there may be a higher quality control standard.

The only market where people do care about country of origin is cars. Foreign cars from the west still have a bit of popularity, but most people prefer to buy Japanese cars -- though not merely because they're Japanese, but because they're reliable, cheaper than imported cars, finding service stations (and parts) is incredibly easy, and in some cases might help you get lower insurance rates.

For general shopping from overseas, use Rakuten. Rakuten is very much like Amazon, though some people say (with its marketplace included) it is actually larger. Recently Rakuten set up a system to allow people to order overseas, so now you have access to a large selection of all kinds of Japanese goods.

http://en.rakuten.co.jp/

 

[aquamarine]

When speaking upon the same topic quite a while ago with a friend, he explained to me that there isn't any real form of advertising done to push Made in Japan products as it's the norm to purchase them. It's also based on pride... Why would a person sink low enough to purchase something made in Taiwan when the SUPERIOR product was made right here? (add in the Japanese ego at your own discretion).

This is also why when shopping for something, say a monitor for example, a twenty-two inch LCD, you will find them as low as 10,000 yen when made by companies like Samsung and LG while in the neighborhood or 20,000 and above for Panasonic, Toshiba and Sony.

Personal reputation comes into play as well. While not the same, let's equate the foreign vs domestic battle here in contrast with real LV bags vs fakes from China and Turkey. If you had friends and family over, would you brag about the knockoff bag with 1/10th the lifespan or the real version, or quietly hide it in your closet? Here if you entertain guests and have foreign brands of electronics, immediatly many folks will assume you are simply too poor to puchase Japan made and that in turn can cause a loss of face.

 

[lowleg26]

Interesting responses. Thanks very much to both of you.

If I can get in another question -- from those responses, it seems almost like the brand name can very easily inform the consumer of the country of production. Is this a general "rule of thumb" with most products? I know for things like cars and many electronics, it may be obvious, but, for smaller things, are there brands that are synonymous with "Japan made"?

In the States, unless its explicitly advertised as coming from a particular place, it can really be a crap-shoot as far as where everything is being made. In many cases, companies seem to take great pains to get you to disregard where they're being produced (Apple, anyone?). If I went to a clothing store at the local mall, I could look through a pile of shirts of the same price, the same style, from the same company and easily come up with 3-5 different countries of production.

Is there more uniformity regarding where these imports are coming from over in Japan? I assume proximity to China (along with their increasing presence as the world's default mass manufacturer) would increase the likelihood that you'd run across more Chinese imports than any other. But are you just as likely to find Honduran or Indonesian made products?

Sorry to badger you guys with questions, but this is a topic I find pretty interesting. Thanks again for the responses. :bow-pray:

 

[guy]

Why would a person sink low enough to purchase something made in Taiwan when the SUPERIOR product was made right here?

Interestingly enough, when it comes to electronics, Taiwan is responsible for some of the world's best semiconductors (motherboards, chipsets, daughtercards, etc; almost everything except CPUs and hard drives). Then again, there's no shortage of crap gadgets, too (though the same goes for China and a bunch of other countries).

it seems almost like the brand name can very easily inform the consumer of the country of production. Is this a general "rule of thumb" with most products?

Nope. Even companies like Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sony will outsource parts of labor to foreign countries. There are plenty of Sony products that are actually made (manufactured and/or assembled) in Thailand, for instance.

Brands that are widely recognized tend to be fairly large companies; and fairly large companies tend to look for cheaper ways to produce their products. But that doesn't mean it's bad; the good companies find ways to save money while still keeping standards high. In the end, that's what you pay for when buying by brand: quality control, not country of origin.

 

[lowleg26]

Thanks for the follow up response, guy. :bow-pray:

In the end, that's what you pay for when buying by brand: quality control, not country of origin.

Just to clarify, my desire to find "developed nation" made products has less to do with quality control than it has to do with knowing that the people on the production line received at least a half-decent wage.

That said, if something is crummy quality, its not worth buying regardless of where it came from. :joker:

 

[HarutoAsou]

I would doubt it given that Japanese brand names electronics sold in Japan cost more than they do in North America.

Korea tried that, for the longest time they wouldn't even sell Japanese electronics because they were so bitter over the past and look at their economy now. Don't get my wrong, I love Korea but the won is shit and yen is still going strong. Of course this still has a lot to do with the way the Japanese economy is run with the keiretsu (sp?) and all but I don't think it really has an advantage because it cuts relations with other countries and hurts them over all.