[Mike Cash]

In most stores in Japan, good luck to you finding a Pentax.

The simple fact is that makers pay retailers here for display space, and Pentax either doesn't have the money to compete, isn't willing to spend it, doesn't think it will work, or maybe something else.

I recently was looking at some data on kakaku.com and found that while Pentax may suck at sales they had two of the top five (I think it was) in the customer satisfaction rating.

Japanese consumers are some of the biggest "follow the leader" lemmings in the world. If Canon/Nikon are out front and that's what "everybody" has, then that is what "everybody" will buy. There has been lament over the past years about the number of stray dogs turning up in dog pounds......expensive pedigree dogs. Turned out into the cold by their owners because the fashion regarding the latest trendy breed of dog changed and they followed right along by throwing out the old dog and getting a new one.

You can look at the sales data in terms of what it means financially to the company, but it shouldn't be taken as any sort of barometer of how savvy consumers rate the products from the various makers, because if there is one thing Japanese consumers in general are not, it is savvy. The strongest trend here is 高けりゃいい (If it's expensive it must be good) and they will turn their noses up at and walk right past anything that is suspiciously cheap. Makers know that tendency full well and have for decades price-gouged the hell out of people in this country, knowing they wouldn't be satisfied paying less.

There was once a president of a chain electronic stores in Tokyo, Jounan Denki, who decided to do a little experiment in one of his stores. He told about it on television and the story went like this: He imported a lot of blue jeans from a maker in Vietnam, and put up two large display bins in one of his stores. On one bin was a sign proclaiming the jeans at 1,980 yen (about $10) and on the other a similar sign marked for 198 yen (about $2).

He reported that people rushed into the store, ran right past the 198 yen jeans, and fought each other over the 1,980 yen jeans; it was bedlam. Nobody even looked at the cheaper jeans.

The interviewer said, "Well, that was an interesting experiment, but not very realistic. After all, you can't really sell jeans at that price."

The president of the company shot back that not only were they the exact same blue jeans in both bins, but that even at 198 yen per pair he could turn a profit on them.....but that Japanese consumers wouldn't buy them at that price. Mark them up 1000% and people fight over them. Over the last quarter-century I've seen plenty of similar examples myself.

If Pentax wanted to increase their sales in Japan, the smartest thing they could do would be to double the prices.

EDIT:

Peter, Hyundai and Kia may be trying to sell cars in Japan, but they're not doing a very good job of it. I'm on the road half the day every day and I think I may have seen one Hyundai. I've seen a couple of defunct dealerships, though. They're having better luck with scooters such as from Kymco. You have to understand that the problems and mutual enmity between the Japanese and the Koreans runs very deep and is only recently beginning to show small signs of thawing. Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945, treated them horribly, and brought great numbers of them to Japan for forced labor during the war. They and their descendants who are still here do not have citizenship, face discrimination, and need special permission to re-enter Japan (which is the only home the second and third generation have ever known) if they go on vacation. They are barred from many public service jobs, can't vote, and are sometimes even barred from tournament play on high school sports teams. The Korean side of the resentment is understandable. The Japanese side comes, I think, from the same way you start to feel toward a guy who loaned you money when you haven't paid him back yet.