The general rule at shops in Japan has been to prohibit the snapping of photographs without permission from management. But perhaps with the ubiquity of smartphones and increasing popularity of photo-sharing services such as Instagram and Flickr, this rule may be changing.
The Nikkei Marketing Journal (18 March) noted that more businesses are dropping the ban. While such photos may enable leakage of data to competitors or risk violating the privacy of customers, shops are beginning to acknowledge that the advantages outweigh the risks. Some may even be incorporating such a practice into their marketing strategy.
Electronics retail giant Yodobashi Camera Co., Ltd. is said to have become the first major retailer to drop the taboo, on 16 September, 2015, when it announced a new policy would be in force at all 22 of its shops.
The firm’s main rationale for banning the taking of photos was to conceal their prices from competitors. “But since in-store prices correspond to the prices advertised online, it didn’t make sense any more to hide them”, said Shunta Kuramochi, assistant manager at the Yodobashi-Akiba multimedia shop in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district.
When asked about another concern, that of leaking in-store point-of-sale displays to outsiders, Kuramochi said: “The logic of our shops was to prohibit photography but, considering the customers, we decided the demerits of not allowing them to take photos were outweighed by the merits. And if competitors imitate us, we’ll just have to redesign the store displays faster than the imitators”.
Some customers take photos for practical reasons: One 31-year-old female employee was quoted as saying that, when she’s uncertain about what to purchase, she “takes photos of products and posts them on a social networking site to get her friends’ opinions”. Afterwards, she’ll also post a photo of the item she bought, as a way of telling friends she is happy with her purchase.
“That makes shopping all the more satisfying”, she told the Nikkei Marketing Journal. “So I feel disappointed if I’m not allowed to take a photo”.
According to Timeless Tokyo, a marketer of vintage brands, setting up a photo spot in its shop that encourages customers to take pictures, and offering other promotional activities, such as giveaways, resulted in posts on the Internet. The firm boasts its outlay for advertising is zero.
Bic Camera’s outlet on the east side of Shinjuku Station took the idea a step further. As a way of attracting customers to the shop, it made one of its female part-time workers from Taiwan something of a celebrity attraction, by encouraging visiting tourists from Taiwan to post her photograph on their Facebook pages. This is a new way of putting staff in the limelight.