IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v6y1997i2p91-112.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retail buyer decision-making in Japan: what US sellers need to know

Author

Listed:
  • Alpert, Frank
  • Kamins, Michael
  • Sakano, Tomoaki
  • Onzo, Naoto
  • Graham, John

Abstract

With formal trade barriers in Japan virtually eliminated, attention has turned to the structural or non-tariff barriers that might help explain persistent trade deficits with Japan that the US and many other countries have experienced. In this study, the first empirical examination of its kind, we analyze how the Japanese distribution system serves as a structural barrier to entry. To do so, we surveyed Japanese supermarket buyers about the individual and relative importance of five key factors in their choice of suppliers. In addition, we used similar data from a previous study of retail buyers in the United States to develop the first cross-cultural comparison of retailer decision-making. Important differences in the nature and conduct of business relationships in the two countries suggest several ways that US seller--and indeed, all foreign sellers--might address the disadvantages they face in the Japanese market.

Suggested Citation

  • Alpert, Frank & Kamins, Michael & Sakano, Tomoaki & Onzo, Naoto & Graham, John, 1997. "Retail buyer decision-making in Japan: what US sellers need to know," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 91-112, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:6:y:1997:i:2:p:91-112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593196000406
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin S Roth & Jean B Romeo, 1992. "Matching Product Category and Country Image Perceptions: A Framework for Managing Country-of-Origin Effects," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 23(3), pages 477-497, September.
    2. John B Cullen & Jean L Johnson & Tomoaki Sakano, 1995. "Japanese and Local Partners Commitment to IJVs: Psychological Consequences of Outcomes and Investments in the IJV Relationships," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 26(1), pages 91-115, March.
    3. Mordechai E. Kreinin, 1988. "How Closed is Japan's Market? Additional Evidence," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 529-542, December.
    4. Victor V Cordell, 1992. "Effects of Consumer Preferences for Foreign Sourced Products," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 23(2), pages 251-269, June.
    5. Warren J Bilkey & Erik Nes, 1982. "Country-of-Origin Effects on Product Evaluations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 13(1), pages 89-100, March.
    6. Saeed Samiee, 1994. "Customer Evaluation of Products in a Global Market," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 25(3), pages 579-604, September.
    7. Jean L Johnson & Tomoaki Sakano & Naoto Onzo, 1990. "Behavioral Relations in Across-Culture Distribution System: Influence, Control and Conflict in U.S., Japanese Marketing Channels," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 21(4), pages 639-655, December.
    8. Sudhir H Kale & John W Barnes, 1992. "Understanding the Domain of Cross-National Buyer-Seller Interactions," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 23(1), pages 101-132, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Swoboda, Bernhard & Foscht, Thomas & Cliquet, Gérard, 2008. "International value chain processes by retailers and wholesalers — A general approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 63-77.
    2. Kim, Changju & Takashima, Katsuyoshi, 2014. "The impact of outcome-based control for retail buyers on organizational performance," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 76-83.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leonidas C. Leonidou & Bilge Aykol & Saeed Samiee & Nikolaos Korfiatis, 2022. "A Meta-analysis of the Antecedents and Outcomes of Consumer Foreign Country Image Perceptions: The Moderating Role of Macro-level Country Differences," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 62(5), pages 741-784, October.
    2. van Ittersum, Koert & Candel, Math J. J. M. & Meulenberg, Matthew T. G., 2003. "The influence of the image of a product's region of origin on product evaluation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 215-226, March.
    3. Tac, Nurullah & Aglargoz, Ozan, 2007. "Turquality: an innovative unique model for making global brands out of Turkish products," SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 10(1), pages 127-137.
    4. Yu, Julie H. & Albaum, Gerald, 2002. "Sovereignty change influences on consumer ethnocentrism and product preferences: Hong Kong revisited one year later," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 891-899, November.
    5. Saeed Samiee & Constantine S. Katsikeas & G. Tomas M. Hult, 2021. "The overarching role of international marketing: Relevance and centrality in research and practice," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(8), pages 1429-1444, October.
    6. Cuffaro, Nadia & Di Giacinto, Marina, 2015. "Credence goods, consumers’ trust in regulation and high quality exports," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 4(2), pages 1-19, August.
    7. Wang, Cheng Lu & Li, Dongjin & Barnes, Bradley R. & Ahn, Jongseok, 2012. "Country image, product image and consumer purchase intention: Evidence from an emerging economy," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 1041-1051.
    8. Bruhn, Manfred & Schwarz, Jürgen & Batt, Verena, 2012. "Swissness als Erfolgsfaktor – Einsatz des Country-of-Origin zur Stärkung von Marken-Konsumenten-Beziehungen und der Markenbindung," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 66(2), pages 153-179.
    9. A Rauf Butt, 2001. "A Comparative Study of Pakistani Consumers' Country-of-Origin Attitudes toward the Marketing Mix of Products from Germany, Japan and South Korea," Vision, , vol. 5(2), pages 49-60, July.
    10. Manrai, Lalita A. & Lascu, Dana-Nicoleta & Manrai, Ajay K., 1998. "Interactive effects of country of origin and product category on product evaluations," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 591-615, November.
    11. Eng, Teck-Yong & Ozdemir, Sena & Michelson, Grant, 2016. "Brand origin and country of production congruity: Evidence from the UK and China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 5703-5711.
    12. Baldauf, Artur & Cravens, Karen S. & Diamantopoulos, Adamantios & Zeugner-Roth, Katharina Petra, 2009. "The Impact of Product-Country Image and Marketing Efforts on Retailer-Perceived Brand Equity: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(4), pages 437-452.
    13. Li, Zhan G. & Murray, L. William & Scott, Don, 2000. "Global Sourcing, Multiple Country-of-Origin Facets, and Consumer Reactions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 121-133, February.
    14. Sandeep Kumar & Amit Gautam, 2021. "Country of Origin Effect on Purchase Intention Towards Italian Luxury Fashion: Mediating Role of Brand Perception and Social Status," Metamorphosis: A Journal of Management Research, , vol. 20(1), pages 16-24, June.
    15. Ahmed Imran Hunjra & Sehrish Kiran & Babar Khalid, 2015. "Relationship between Country of Origin Image, Product Knowledge, Product Involvement, and Purchase Intention," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 4(1), pages 48-62, March.
    16. Saeed Samiee & Brian R. Chabowski, 2021. "Knowledge structure in product- and brand origin–related research," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 947-968, September.
    17. Zeugner-Roth, Katharina P. & Diamantopoulos, Adamantios, 2010. "Advancing the country image construct: Reply to Samiee's (2009) commentary," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 446-449, April.
    18. Huat Wei Huang & Ernest Cyril de Run & Ernest Cyril de Run & Hiram Ting & Hiram Ting & Huong Sung Colin Ting, 2016. "“Made In China” Products and the Implication of Ethnic Identification Strength," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 6(3), pages 631-640.
    19. Hsu, Chia-Lin & Chang, Chi-Ya & Yansritakul, Chutinart, 2017. "Exploring purchase intention of green skincare products using the theory of planned behavior: Testing the moderating effects of country of origin and price sensitivity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 145-152.
    20. Aby Abraham & Sanjay Patro, 2014. "‘Country-of-Origin’ Effect and Consumer Decision-making," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 39(3), pages 309-318, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:6:y:1997:i:2:p:91-112. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.