by carterjmrn | Jul 10, 2014 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Having spent the past 28 years observing the Japanese market and its trials and tribulations, I am always amused by the “is Japan back” question, which I have heard on a number of occasions over the years. Did anyone really ever think that Japan had gone “somewhere...
by carterjmrn | Jun 26, 2014 | Carter Group Viewpoints
After years of reporting on a Japanese consumer in retreat, we believe we are starting to see a sea change. Even in recent weeks, the tone of our conversations with people around us has become much more positive. The cautiously optimistic are turning into the simply...
by carterjmrn | Feb 14, 2014 | Carter Group Viewpoints
The beginning of 2014 marks the end of my fifteenth year in Japan. That’s more than enough time in one place for any self-respecting expat so, on visits back home, despairing friends and relatives will often ask what on earth I’m still doing here. I just point to my...
by carterjmrn | Jun 27, 2013 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Those of us who have lived in Japan for some time will often marvel at how quickly and definitely the seasons change. One day it’s winter and the next it’s spring — such is the speed with which the seemingly entrenched weather pattern can change. So also it seems with...
by carterjmrn | Jun 24, 2013 | Carter Group Viewpoints
On a recent business trip to Singapore I was taken aback when told by someone well connected in the American business community there, “Japan? Oh that’s just a niche market, nobody’s that interested in it anymore”. What a wake up call for anyone who has devoted his...
by carterjmrn | Nov 24, 2012 | Carter Group Viewpoints
There’s no polite way of saying it. It seems to me lately that Japan is turning into a nation of cheapskates. But, truth be told, Japanese have always adopted a defensive stance when it comes to spending money. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to...
by carterjmrn | Nov 24, 2012 | Carter Group Viewpoints
At the beginning of 2011 The New York Times wrote a piece with a headline “Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan.” At the time, it seemed like Facebook had failed to ignite anything like the kind of addictive behaviour it had everywhere else in the developed...
by carterjmrn | Nov 19, 2012 | Carter Group Viewpoints
Top chefs from around the world predicted that vegetables and “fabulous experimental vegetarian food” would catch a wave in 2012, along with the use of pure and natural ingredients from ethically produced, sustainable farming. The uptake on this trend in Tokyo...
by carterjmrn | Oct 21, 2012 | Carter Group Viewpoints
At Decks Mall in Tokyo’s Odaiba there is a whole floor devoted to an attraction called Daiba Itchome Shoutengai. That precinct of the shopping centre is a self-contained step back in time to the urban Japan of the sixties. The place is bursting with candy, trinkets,...