Got an email from a customer yesterday that summed up nicely both those statements. I provide a standard 1 year warranty on all my products. A customer contacted me to say that the product had broken because she dropped it!. She said that it was her fault, but added in brackets that she was the mother of a 1 year old, and then, “I don’t suppose I can use the warranty?”.
I loved it! She could easily have lied and said that it just broke, but Japanese people just don’t do that. And then asking for a warranty anyway, is just a very Osaka thing to do. People in Osaka are well known in Japan for being very fresh/pushy. But in a nice kind of way
The main point of the tip here is that returns are very low in Japan exactly because of Japanese people’s honesty. If they bought a product by mistake, they will say so when they return the product, and so will need to pay for shipping. I bet none of us here do that!
And the return rate itself is very low. I need to re-check my numbers, but for me, Germany is about double the UK (for the exact same product), and the UK is about 4 times japan.
*This post originated from a post in the Amazon Japan Facebook group, “Amazon Japan PL”. The information may well have changed by the time you read this. Please check the DATE of the post before you make any decisions based on this information!
