Warranty

The quality of the products ”made in Japan” is now regarded as excellent worldwide. Indeed despite I have been using a Japanese television for several years, it‘s been quite good without any defects. There have been neither repairs nor major disorders on the screen since I bought. To prove the splendid quality of Japanese products, many of the foreign tourists have been seen with electrical appliances in their hands on the streets of the electronic district in Tokyo called Akihabara. Japanese products are available almost anywhere in the major countries today. Their main purposes are mostly sightseeing in Japan. Yet it deserves buying Japanese goods by bothering to go to the electrical shopping district. They look for goods at cheaper prices with good qualities.

The reputation of Japanese products, however, has taken time and great efforts to be established. Japan has had the potentials to create things in its long history. These skills don’t seem to be so different from foreign countries. It’s very recently that the qualities of Japanese products especially in the field of electrical appliances have become widely well-known. SONY, for example, had experienced hard times to explore the global markets until its reputation was established. Shortly after the last war, the company was created. With the great efforts, the products had gradually become welcome to the domestic markets for its technologies and creativeness. And then, the co-founder Akio Morita went to NY to sell SONY’s transistors radios which he believed was supposed to be well-received even in the US. But his hope had desperately deteriorated because he was told by the shop owners that there was no place to sell Japanese “bad” products. Through that period of hard times for not only SONY but also other manufacturers, the qualities of Japanese products have been globally recognized.

Entering the consumer-oriented ages, the ways of looking at products have changed. There have been more competitors emerging in the global markets. Threats of deteriorating the established brands by pirates have appeared before big makers. Asian countries have been catching up with Japan in technologies. Under the cut-throat competition circumstances, even Japanese manufacturers are put into a situation where they have to launch new products incessantly in the markets in order to match the needs of consumers. Although those manufacturers are making all the possible efforts such as repeated experiments to maintain the qualities of the new products, there are, of course, some risks in challenging new technologies. Defect, for example, is one of the risks that challengers have to take. Since there is not much experience in new products, some problems may appear in the products.

What’s necessary is warranty in order to give the trust of the qualities to consumers. Many of the Japanese products today are warranted the qualities. This system is more popular in the West I think. But It has been becoming prevalent in Japan. As for the Japanese warranty system, manufacturers usually warrant the qualities of products for one year regardless of newly-launched products or not. Namely the period buyers claim to get the defected products repaired freely is only one year since the purchases. Popular is the warranty system provided by retailers rather than makers as so-called extended warranty. Electronic appliances retailers line up the service product to extend the manufacturer one-year warranty. They mainly adapt the system for one of the retailers’ sales strategies, not for the reason that Japanese products are likely to be defective. Cut-throat competition especially in the markets of electrical appliances urge the retailers to adapt the warranty system in order to differentiate competitors.

There are mainly two ways to implement the system. One is to install warranties into all products of particular items. The warranty premium is included in the prices of the products. The other is that buyers choose to purchase the warranties to extend the one-year manufacturer warranty to certain period. In this optional system the product shoppers have to pay the warranty premium additionally. The latter or optional one seems to be more popular on the retail floors in Japan.

There are some problems in the warranty system. For example, when I went to a electrical floor at a department store to buy a telephone with a facsimile function, I found favorite one which had good designs and cheaper price. Above all, there was a five-year warranty. And then I brought it to the cashier, just added precaution, I confirmed that the telephone machine was automatically installed a five-year warranty. The answer of the clerk was that I had to but the warranty if I wanted. I couldn’t believe the response because the tag attached to the product on the shopping shelve misleadingly said the warranty was installed. The clerk didn’t recommend me to buy a warranty at all. So If I didn’t make sure, I would have thought I could get it fixed freely for five years. Although the warranty system has been becoming popular, it’s better to make sure whether or not there is.

The biggest problem especially for foreign buyers is that the warranty doesn’t work overseas. You can claim to get the buying products fixed only in Japan. Let’s stop to think of buying warranties when you are at the cashiers of electrical appliances shops if you want to bring them back to your countries. To buy warranties or trust the qualities of Japanese products without warranties, that is a question.