Over the weekend we had a bit of an adventure: we made a trip to a Japanese Costco, the membership club that offers the American warehouse shopping experience to consumers in Japan. Costco has been operating stores here since 1999, but until recently all the locations were on the other side of Tokyo from where we’re located, and I would rather fly all the way to California to buy something rather than drive through the chaos that is Japan’s capital, if I have any choice in the matter. When we walked through the doors we were instantly transported to a world of shopping convenience where we could find all sorts of things not usually available in Japan, from American hot dogs to breakfast cereals to fabric softeners and more. We were quite pleased with how much effort the company had put into bringing the standard Costco experience to Japan, and we knew where everything was right away because the layout was exactly the same as the stores we shopped at in San Diego. (My existing Costco card even worked.) While Japanese consumers have gotten more comfortable with buying bulk over the past two decades or so, Costco still has some work to do to adapt its business model to the country, and many of the products they were offering in the store seemed confusing to me, from the bake-at-home pizza that was too big for tiny Japanese ovens to a full selection of children’s books in English, which no one was even picking at, or American pickles, which I am happy to buy but which most Japanese dislike. Paradigm shifts in buying habits always present opportunities to certain companies, and I could see that a lot of American brands were getting a toe-hold with Japanese shoppers who had never seen Downy or Tide or Duracell batteries in the past. It’d be interesting to see if these companies can increase their market share in Japan, using Costco as a springboard. There was a downside to my little shopping trip, however: the feeling of being back in the States was so complete that I had real trouble staying on the correct side of the road while driving home. You should have heard my wife scream.
I really can’t explain why Japanese people would be taking picture of this
