Buy the Best

This post is more for my Japanese friends who read this site. It still might be interesting for the rest of you, but I dunno.

Anyway, as I have written before, Japan is huge on electronics. Besides being the biggest consumer market in the world, Japanese people are constantly buying electronics and upgrading what they have. While the majority of electronics bought and sold are Japanese in origin, I was always shocked to find a large number of iPods on the trains and busses and streets of Osaka.

In Japan you can find a few major store chains in every city: Yodobashi Camera, Sofmap, Joshin, Bic Camera, Midori Denki and Camera Naniwa to name a few. Despite their names, these stores do not focus on cameras, but rather a large variety of products. Well over here in the US, we have many as well, but today I visited and photographed Best Buy.

Best Buy is a sort of electronics super store. Inside you will find all manner of televisions, DVDs, CDs, video games, computer accessories and parts, digital cameras, MP3 players and accessories and much more. Best Buy is a really cool place, but is usually a zoo on a Sunday day. The only thing they are missing is the point system that is commonly used in Japan.

In this system, a store marks up items a little, but returns the cost in the form of points which can be redeemed for items in the store. Unlike the crappy American credit card companies which give you around $100 for every 75,000 points you spend (usually 1 point for every $1 spent), Yodobashi camera gave you 10% of your purchase back in points. Which means that after I spend about $1000 dollars I get $100: a clever way to keep customers in the store.

Still, Best Buy isn’t a bad place to get that DVD you have been looking for.


Wisdom of the Day: Rubbing fried chicken on our skin might give you good luck, but it will definitely give you acne.