It turns out that “select” Apple Specialist locations — independently-owned stores authorized by Apple to sell and service its products — will be getting iPad stock to sell on Saturday. In our experience it’s hit-or-miss; we’ve called a few locations around the country this morning and have been given answers ranging from “no” to “we’ll have display units, not retail units” to a straight-up “yes,” so we recommend that you call the Specialist near you if you’re looking for a stealth way to avoid the bedlam that’s likely going to be brewing at proper Apple Stores. Complicating matters, though, is the fact that we’re also being told these Specialists are currently under NDA, which means you might not be able to get a straight answer out of ’em today — but hey, at least be on notice that you’ve got a Plan B (or C) if neither Apple nor Best Buy are able to hook you up in about 48 hours’ time.
GameStop listings are about as accurate as a 14th century musket — especially when it comes to release dates — but that didn’t keep news site GameSpot from capping the above screenshot. As you can no doubt read, the picture suggests that SanDisk will indeed release a specially-branded 8GB USB flash drive alongside the Xbox 360’s USB storage update — but at twice the normal price for a drive of that capacity. Our red hot rage at this injustice is tempered somewhat knowing there’s no concrete proof the $40 figure is correct, but knowing SanDisk (and, frankly, Microsoft’s own propensity for overpriced storage) we wouldn’t be surprised to see several green thumbdrives pulling a premium at retail next week. Once more for the record: as long as it’s larger than 1GB, smaller than 16GB and you format it using the Xbox 360 menus, any USB flash drive will do.
Japan is very savvy when it comes to umbrellas. Whenever it’s a rainy day shops, restaurants and hotels will usually have a stand of long plastic bags at the entrance, which visitors take and put over their wet umbrellas. The most sophisticated of these is probably the Kasapon dispenser: slide in your umbrella and it automatically slips on a bag. (Short umbrellas can be tricky but apparently there are dispensers especially for them too!)
During our recent visit to RetailTech 2010 we saw a great Kasapon dispenser which also had a “umbrella bag collection machine” (傘袋回収機). Certainly taking the now-dripping plastic bag off your umbrella when you want to leave the store can be an unpleasant experience, but here you just put your umbrella into the hole and when you pull it back up the slip is magically gone.
There is no electricity involved, just good old springs and levers, and the dispensers can store literally hundreds of the plastic bags. This kind of smooth tool can really change your retail experience, which is usually harried and uncomfortable enough on a rainy day.
These sets (dispenser and bag disposal unit) don’t come cheap, though: one model we looked at costs 165,900 JPY ($1,800)!
Since fashion market watcher David Marx hit the bulls eye perfectly with his assessment of Abercrombie’s new Ginza flagship store, we have very little to add to the story besides the tweet we blurted out while in the midst of the most traumatic shopping afternoon ever. Actually, we were scouting the store for a client report, but it didn’t take long to confirm what we knew already.
To be fair, I don’t want to write a hit job on the brand, but the market-entry history of Japan in the last…well…150 year suggests that you can’t just waltz into the market, business as usual, and sell a bunch of American goods to consumers that you perceive as desperate for something new. Especially if the items are marked-up in a time of recession, and when real fast-fashion brands are doing brisk sales.
However, this recent damning review by Japanese celebrity Midori Utsumi pretty much sums up what I’ve heard from every other Japanese consumer I’ve queried about the shop. Granted, she’s not exactly the target customer, but there are elements of the Japanese retail experience that cross most demographics.
Money quote: もう、最悪！でした。(Ugh, it was the worst!)
She goes on to talk about the darkness, the smell, how cramped it is, and how the elevators only go straight to the seventh floor, leaving you to navigate the rest of the building by stairs. The women’s dressing room is only on the 10th floor, and the cash register is only on the 11th. Plus, when she asked where the restroom was, she was told that they don’t have one. Much of the rest of the blog piece is a lament on the poor training and manners of the staff.
As a native Ohioan who grew up with the brand all around me, I have a love-hate relationship to its image. While many of my friends and classmates wore A&F or worked at its shops (and eventually in its offices), I was never able to get excited about the clothes there because they never seemed to look right on my slim, 5′8″ frame. Since my body size is fairly average around these parts, I feel that Japanese men have similar issues.
Here’s a great video of one of the A&F Ginza shop’s recent spelunkers.
It could have a lot to do with the nature of the brand itself, which oozes New England, blue-blood arrogance mixed with the sweat of jocks who push geeks into lockers. Not that I was one of those geeks or anything…I’m not bitter, I swear.
It’s odd enough that the first five sales floors of the 11-story building are for men’s clothes, and 8~11 are for women. Go into nearly any other retail shop in Japan that has mixed fashion and the women’s clothes are ALWAYS first. So, the shop that has half-naked male models and eleven floors of portraits of naked sportsmen adorning the staircase is prioritizing its male customers? Why didn’t they just open up in the middle of Shinjuku ni-chome and get it over with?
To get an idea of the digital buzz around the brand, check out the official A&F Mixi group. I’m not saying that it represents all of Japan, but just the number of members compared to similar brands can provide some perspective.
In the end, it’s an interesting experiment and I wish A&F success, especially since the Asian market as a whole has better chances for finding the right consumer. Looking forward, since former company-mate Victoria’s Secret will surely be coming into the local market soon let’s see what kind of approach they take. Somehow I think that big, busty, leggy models will resonate with Japanese women the same way that blue-eyed and buff A&F models do with Japanese men.
That doesn’t mean that they can’t come to Japan, but it does mean that they need to do some research first.
We heard back in January that Sony was looking to reface itself somewhat by introducing a minty fresh retail look that takes a note or two from the Apple and Microsoft shops already in existence, and for those lucky enough to find themselves in Nagoya this weekend, you can check it out in person. March 13th marked the opening of the all new Sony Store Nagoya, and with an ample of amount of glass, white demo stands and black overhead signs, it’s certainly one of the more seductive retail shops that we’ve seen. We’d bother knocking Sony for following instead of leading, but considering just how far the brand has fallen over the past couple of years, we’re just stoked to see it putting forth an effort to turn things around.
After years of rumor and speculation, Apple’s now taking orders for its iPad tablet. And now that cash money is involved we’ll finally see if Apple has a success on its hands by filling the void between smartphones and netbooks/laptops — something Microsoft and its hoard of vendors just haven’t been able to muster. Today’s order is delivered on April 3rd (in the US) for free and orders are limited to two per customer. But rather than wait for analysts and Apple’s financial reports to tell the tale, let’s get a jump on things with an informal poll: are you ordering the iPad?
German online retail site brands4friends yesterday launched its service in Japan, in which it sells remainders of high quality brand name goods through temporary auctions.
Auctions are familiar to Japanese users through already popular ones like Yahoo! but this represents a new kind of service for the market. Through brands4friends consumers can get their hands not on cheap used goods (which consumers here are traditionally suspicious of anyway), but brand and outlet fashion products that can sell for up to seventy percent off. Auctions are organized by brand and the duration of each one is fixed (75 hours), along with the number of items, thus making each sale a kind of event in which consumers are encouraged to enter quickly.
The company has promised some four hundred brands — clothes, of course, but also household goods, appliances and accessories. Already a hit in its native Germany, the service hopes to have a quarter of a million registered users in two years’ time, and annual sales of 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion).
To register you require an invitation from a current member, though it is open to any user to join until March 11. This slight sense of exclusivity, coupled with the temporariness of the auctions (once over apparently you cannot search for sold items or prices), should build buzz for the site.
We have already seen how this real-time got-to-get-it-now kind of retail experience has been a hit for Tokyo Girls Collection, where consumers are able to purchase clothes through their phones as they watch them being worn by popular models. If brands4friends succeeds, it will be another milestone in the trend towards democratic and cheap fast fashion.
Good news for those who found themselves a few yen short after hearing the Japanese prices of Panasonic’s first 3D plasma HDTVs — their American counterparts will be considerably cheaper. Even at a recent line show the company kept the MSRPs close to its chest, but March 10 Best Buy’s 24 hour location at Union Square will sell the first full HD 3D home theater system, consisting of the aforementioned VT25, DMP-BDT350 Blu-ray player and active shutter glasses. Japan’s Nikkei pegs the bundle price at around $3,000, with 50-inch televisions by themselves arriving for around $2,500. Compare that to the ¥430,000 ($4,813) price in Japan and you’ve got an idea of the discounting going on so Panasonic can hit its targets of 1 million 3DTVs (worldwide) sold in 2010. Can’t get to Manhattan by Wednesday? The Panasonic/Best Buy team up will reportedly place demos at 300 or so stores shortly, rising to 1,000 locations by the end of the year. Unfortunately they won’t be able to advertise an Academy Award for Best Picture winner (catch Samsung’s ad last night?) in the 3D demo reel, but between Avatar and this week’s box office smash, Alice in Wonderland, we’re sure there will be at least a few people interested in taking 3D home once it’s available.
Got a hankering for Pine Trail? We attest to a certain weakness ourselves, and now MSI’s Wind U160 netbook is on sale for $380 to fulfill your Atom N450 snacking needs. We were intrigued by the little laptop when we played with it back at CES, particularly if its standard 6-cell battery hump can really produce the quoted 14 hours of life. For whatever reason Newegg and Buy.com are showing now-shipping right now, while Amazon’s lagging with pre-orders only at this point, but we’re sure you’ll make the right retail choice, whatever happens.
We’ve already seen Sony’s newest Blu-ray players turn up at retail, and it looks like they’ve now been joined by LG, Panasonic and Samsung’s latest offerings. Those include the BD590, BD570 and BD550 from LG, the DMP-BD85 and DMP-BD65 from Panasonic, and a lone BD-C6500 from Samsung, although that’s just the first of more to come from the company. No surprises with the prices or specs, but you can check out a slew of in-the-wild shots at the link below, or head down to your local Best Buy (or other retailer) to see if you’re able to spot any of them first-hand yourself.
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It turns out that “select” Apple Specialist locations — independently-owned stores authorized by Apple to sell and service its products — will be getting iPad stock to sell on Saturday. In our experience it’s hit-or-miss; we’ve called a few locations around the country this morning and have been given answers ranging from “no” to “we’ll have display units, not retail units” to a straight-up “yes,” so we recommend that you call the Specialist near you if you’re looking for a stealth way to avoid the bedlam that’s likely going to be brewing at proper Apple Stores. Complicating matters, though, is the fact that we’re also being told these Specialists are currently under NDA, which means you might not be able to get a straight answer out of ’em today — but hey, at least be on notice that you’ve got a Plan B (or C) if neither Apple nor Best Buy are able to hook you up in about 48 hours’ time.
