Quote:
Originally Posted by Serenita
Is that true that Japanese people are very demanding in term of quality of the items they purchase ?
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I can't comment on ice cream but when it comes to perishable goods, supermarkets seem to be much stricter in Japan than in the west about moving on stock before it gets old. I've seen bacon for sale in the UK that was fairly turning green. That, generalizing from my experience, would not happen in Japan. People talk and they take reputation very seriously so if word is out that a product is bad, it will quite likely damage sales. Looks at Chinese gyoza. Producers in Japan are possibly more sensitive to this and take more measures to avoid upsetting the faith, so when someone does slip up it's bigger news than it might be in the West.
I would say that more than 'quality' as opposed to 'basic' then people in Japan don't like a bad deal; if they buy expensive 'quality' goods, they expect them to live up to that description. They will often buy cheaply as a matter of course, happily so, and not demand more than the price is worth, but they expect it to be fresh and safe to consume and that's an issue in which they can be (justifiably) uncompromising.