Downsizing Goods Increase Sales to Japanese : Commerce: Slimmer surfboards, smaller athletic outfits boost orders from Japan. A trend there toward individualism is noted at Anaheim conference on sports equipment exports to Japan.
Joey Santley went to Japan two years ago to sell surfboards and neon-colored surf wear. He drew a lot of attention but not much else.
The marketing executive for California Surf Xports in Laguna Niguel found that his clients’ products were too big for the average Japanese surfer. Santley, who represents 18 Southern California sporting goods and sportswear manufacturers, told his clients that “if they’re serious about entering the Japanese market, they have to make some changes.”
Those changes included making slimmer surfboards that were 6 inches shorter--to 5-foot-10--than standard models. Clothing designers had to offer smaller-size swimwear and tennis outfits. After those alterations were made last fall, orders began trickling in, he said.
Since the late 1980s, the Japanese government has encouraged companies to give their employees more vacation time, and Santley said more young Japanese are forgoing team sports for individual recreation.
According to the Leisure Development Center, a Tokyo-based government organization, the sale of sports equipment and sportswear in Japan grew by 9% to $33.3 billion between 1989 and 1990. About 26% of those sales were imports from the United States; nearly 30% came from Taiwan.
Individual sports, such as horseback riding, aerobics, scuba and skin diving, boating and surfing, are expected to grow in popularity in the 1990s, according to the leisure center, which said golf and skiing remain Japan’s most popular sports.
“We’re seeing a growing trend toward individualism and it’s quite possible to segment the Japanese sporting goods market” between solo and group recreation, said Michael P. Birt, manager of InfoPlan, a Tokyo consulting subsidiary of New York advertising giant McCann-Erickson USA Inc.
“We’re not speaking of the robust individualism one might find in the West, but it’s a gentle individualism that’s being exerted and that comes out clearly in individualistic sports,” he said.
Birt’s comments Monday came during the first day of a two-day conference in Anaheim on sports equipment exports to Japan. The event, which drew more than 400 participants, is sponsored by International Recreation Resources, an international trade consulting firm in San Francisco.
InfoPlan, which conducted an informal survey in Japan in the last few months, also found that young Japanese workers are also changing their attitudes about their bodies, Birt said. It used to be that “being healthy” was all right, he said, but now “feeling healthy” is important.
“Young Japanese are stressing more on improving their quality of life,” he said. “Since a lot of them can’t afford to buy their own homes, they spend more on personal items, which expresses their individualism.”
