Comments on: Japanese department stores: expensive with irritating staff http://whatjapanthinks.com/2009/04/16/japanese-department-stores-expensive-with-irritating-staff/ From kimono to keitai; research Japanese facts and figures through translated opinion polls and surveys. Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:29:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.2 By: Martin K http://whatjapanthinks.com/2009/04/16/japanese-department-stores-expensive-with-irritating-staff/comment-page-1/#comment-158994 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:53:26 +0000 http://whatjapanthinks.com/?p=1841#comment-158994 Another factor is the recent trend of brand outlets. When you’re living in Tokyo, it’s easy to forget that only 5% of Japan is covered by dense cities. For people in the country, there is simply no large department store nearby. Instead, you’ll drive to a nearby outlet mall.

What I found surprising is that 22.7% found the staff annoying. Japanese stores put a lot of effort in drilling their staff to be polite and well-dressed. It would be very interesting to find out what customers find annoying. It could be that Japanese customers just ask too much. After all, for 1000 Yen an hour, you could get someone who’s polite, or someone who’s competent, but not both. Personally, I couldn’t care less about a proper bow angle when greeting me in the store, but I want them to understand what I want and offer insightful help with my shopping decision. And Japanese store clerks tend to be the polite type.

Or maybe people hate the tendency of department stores, especially for electronics, to play announcements at deafening loudness. Everytime I see a store clerk with a fricking megaphone telling me about cheap printers in the 3rd floor I want to rip the damn thing out of his hands and smack him with it. But I just leave the damn store instead, and order online at home…

]]> By: Janne http://whatjapanthinks.com/2009/04/16/japanese-department-stores-expensive-with-irritating-staff/comment-page-1/#comment-158908 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:38:06 +0000 http://whatjapanthinks.com/?p=1841#comment-158908 The food floors are nice. But most floors are just womens clothing and accessories, with one floor for mens clothing that women buy for their husbands. So in any poll like this, half the people – the men – are neither welcome nor interested in these stores to begin with. That’s probably a major source of the low numbers you see.

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