The convenience store, a 24-hour retail operation that many Japanese (and foreign residents) depend on for the need for a late-night quick meal or emergency provisions of consumables like shampoo and toothpaste, is often a microcosm of the entire Japanese retail environment. Due to their limited space and relatively high prices for goods sold (compared to supermarkets that do not operate 24 hours a day), convenience stores must constantly adjust products on the shelf to reflect what the local consumers really need that they would pay a premium for those items at the oddest hours of the day.
As Tokyo prepares to host legions of foreign athletes and visitors in less than a year for the 2020 Olympics, convenience stores have come under certain pressures to present a positive image for Japan as a whole to many first-time visitors to the country. Unsurprisingly, given their ubiquity, convenience stores are very likely to become the first outlets for foreign visitors to shop in the country, so how they view what is being sold in convenience stores may have a large impact on their first and subsequent impression of Japanese products and culture.
Given such a logic, major convenience stores have cooperated with the Japanese government to clean up the country's image before the Olympics. One prominent example is on the country's notorious sex industry. While the government worked to gentrify red-light districts like Kabukicho, kicking out (or at least shoving under the carpet) the presence of massage parlors, girls' bars, and other fronts for selling erotic services, convenience stores have been actively removing pornographic magazines from their magazine racks. Both the government and convenience stores hope that banning the outright display of sex can project a more family-friendly image for the host city.
But with sex so entrenched in Japan, merely removing a few magazines cannot expunge the convenience store from sex. As previously noted, convenience stores are, by the nature of their business, extremely sensitive to consumer demands, and need to stock only what the consumers want to buy at high prices. Years of operations have shown that magazines with erotic elements sell well, even if there are not erotic magazines per se. As pornographic magazines are removed, they are quickly replaced by a greater selection of weekly tabloid magazines, plying their trade in unfounded rumors, celebrity gossip, and a good dollop of nude photos and mangas.
Indeed, the case of only partial removal of pornography is not the only illustration that sometimes, the needs and logic of business trumps the desire for Tokyo to put on a nice face for its foreign visitors. In the canned foods aisle of the convenience store, a colorful can is particularly eye-catching. The item, branded with big white words of "Japan stew" in front of the Rising Sun insignia of imperial Japan, is, upon closer inspection, canned whale meat. In an age of international criticism of Japanese whaling and declining domestic demand, whale meat producers are still finding enough consumers through overt nationalist symbolism.
Both the pornography and the whale meat cases show the limitation of just how far Japan is willing to cater to supposed foreign sensibilities about how Japan is perceived. In the hard business logic of the retail world, catering to Olympics visitors who come for a few weeks and an unknown number of future visitors that may come to Japan because of current visitors still represents a tiny source of revenue compared to catering to repeat customers who live for decades in the neighborhood. The benefits of toeing the government line on presenting a healthy image of the country are dubious while the costs of adjusting shelf spaces and supply chains are real.
It certainly does not help that "presenting a good image" can be a moving goalpost that might irk local consumers from a non-business point of view. The case of "Japan stew" shows that foreign criticism of supposed elements of relatively obscure Japanese customs do not kill the custom but instead revive it, through renewed support of a vocal minority tired of pandering to the foreigners. In government-led cleanup campaigns like that in Kabukicho are perceived as kowtowing to foreigners' implicit demands, nationalistic opposition to the campaigns can quickly gather.
While the government has to walk a fine line between presenting a global Japan while preserving the country's uniqueness, convenience stores are put in an even more precarious bellwether position. With public opinions reflected daily by what sells and does not sell well in each of its stores, convenience store chains must quickly react to changes in political and business conditions underpinning the government-led and grassroots campaign to present Japan to Olympics visitors in some designated, performed ways. It is going to be a busy couple of years changing product selections, to say the least.
As Tokyo prepares to host legions of foreign athletes and visitors in less than a year for the 2020 Olympics, convenience stores have come under certain pressures to present a positive image for Japan as a whole to many first-time visitors to the country. Unsurprisingly, given their ubiquity, convenience stores are very likely to become the first outlets for foreign visitors to shop in the country, so how they view what is being sold in convenience stores may have a large impact on their first and subsequent impression of Japanese products and culture.
Given such a logic, major convenience stores have cooperated with the Japanese government to clean up the country's image before the Olympics. One prominent example is on the country's notorious sex industry. While the government worked to gentrify red-light districts like Kabukicho, kicking out (or at least shoving under the carpet) the presence of massage parlors, girls' bars, and other fronts for selling erotic services, convenience stores have been actively removing pornographic magazines from their magazine racks. Both the government and convenience stores hope that banning the outright display of sex can project a more family-friendly image for the host city.
But with sex so entrenched in Japan, merely removing a few magazines cannot expunge the convenience store from sex. As previously noted, convenience stores are, by the nature of their business, extremely sensitive to consumer demands, and need to stock only what the consumers want to buy at high prices. Years of operations have shown that magazines with erotic elements sell well, even if there are not erotic magazines per se. As pornographic magazines are removed, they are quickly replaced by a greater selection of weekly tabloid magazines, plying their trade in unfounded rumors, celebrity gossip, and a good dollop of nude photos and mangas.
Indeed, the case of only partial removal of pornography is not the only illustration that sometimes, the needs and logic of business trumps the desire for Tokyo to put on a nice face for its foreign visitors. In the canned foods aisle of the convenience store, a colorful can is particularly eye-catching. The item, branded with big white words of "Japan stew" in front of the Rising Sun insignia of imperial Japan, is, upon closer inspection, canned whale meat. In an age of international criticism of Japanese whaling and declining domestic demand, whale meat producers are still finding enough consumers through overt nationalist symbolism.
Both the pornography and the whale meat cases show the limitation of just how far Japan is willing to cater to supposed foreign sensibilities about how Japan is perceived. In the hard business logic of the retail world, catering to Olympics visitors who come for a few weeks and an unknown number of future visitors that may come to Japan because of current visitors still represents a tiny source of revenue compared to catering to repeat customers who live for decades in the neighborhood. The benefits of toeing the government line on presenting a healthy image of the country are dubious while the costs of adjusting shelf spaces and supply chains are real.
It certainly does not help that "presenting a good image" can be a moving goalpost that might irk local consumers from a non-business point of view. The case of "Japan stew" shows that foreign criticism of supposed elements of relatively obscure Japanese customs do not kill the custom but instead revive it, through renewed support of a vocal minority tired of pandering to the foreigners. In government-led cleanup campaigns like that in Kabukicho are perceived as kowtowing to foreigners' implicit demands, nationalistic opposition to the campaigns can quickly gather.
While the government has to walk a fine line between presenting a global Japan while preserving the country's uniqueness, convenience stores are put in an even more precarious bellwether position. With public opinions reflected daily by what sells and does not sell well in each of its stores, convenience store chains must quickly react to changes in political and business conditions underpinning the government-led and grassroots campaign to present Japan to Olympics visitors in some designated, performed ways. It is going to be a busy couple of years changing product selections, to say the least.
Comments
Post a Comment