Understanding Japanese Consumers and Their Technological Interests

According to the World Bank, Japan is ranked as the third largest economy in the world. If you are a technology company trying to enter the Japanese market, there are some things you need to understand before you begin. Even the most successful companies, such as Apple, had difficulty penetrating through the Japanese market with their products at first. Japanese consumers are known to be very selective with high expectations. We will discuss below some of the many things they look for in a tech product.

Details

As more and more Japanese consumers actively search for the most unique tech products, it is important for your product design to not only look aesthetically pleasing, but for it to have significance as well.

You will find that a lot of design and packaging in Japan has purpose in it. What I mean by this is even in a simple convenient store onigiri, there is a specific way to peel off plastic wrapping.

The same concept goes for design in technology. You want to hold the consumers’ interest right until the very end. Whether it be fun and quirky or sleek and sophisticated, there should be a meaningful purpose behind it. Checkout some of these products we think fits that criteria:

Trackpad cover compatible with MacBook and Surface Pro

AI ring that analyzes your sleeping pattern

2 in 1 lamp and desk light

Usability

Another big thing Japanese consumers look for is the usability. Usability is defined as “the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object such as a tool or device.” In a way, usability is like customer service, an area in which Japan excels in. You need your product to be good in order for people to continuously come back to it. 

Before you release your product, you want to make sure you tick off these 3 things:

Familiarity

Even though Japanese people love to find new products to integrate into their everyday lifestyles, they don’t like having their lifestyle changed drastically. Therefore, they look for products that can help improve their way of living. You want to make sure your product has a familiarity aspect to it that Japanese consumers can relate to.

Simplicity

In terms of art, Japanese aesthetics tend to lean more towards minimalistic, simple designs. You don’t want to include irrelevant elements to your product because that would take away from the purpose of your product. Keep in mind that Japanese people believe in the Zen philosophy of less is more. 

Floating Plant Vase 

Guidance

You want to be rigorously user testing so that you produce the best possible results. It should be optimized properly with no bugs that would ruin the user experience. Proper guidance will lead to more effectiveness goal of the product. You want the user experience to be as pleasant as possible so that they hold a positive image of your product.

New Ideas

Floating Desk Lightbulb

Japanese consumers are one of the most tech-savvy consumers in the world, therefore they are constantly looking for cutting edge ideas/products. They are very interested in new developments in technology once you give them an incentive to take part in it. Competition is tough especially in Japan because they are used to seeing new products being launched all the time. For that reason, having a fresh new idea can generate interest among the public.