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Japan interior decor market demands top-quality designs
Vietnamese firms making items for interior decoration should focus on improving designs if they wish to penetrate the Japanese market, a Japanese entrepreneur has said.
Kohei Takata, chief of Essence, an interior design company, said despite the economic downturn, Vietnamese interior products could still sell in Japan if they can match the tastes of Japanese customers.
With its 50 million households, most of them affluent, Japan is one of the world’s largest importers of interior decorative products, the Thoi Bao Kinh Te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times) reports.
While Viet Nam has a plentiful supply of materials for making interior decorative items, low labour costs and skillfull diligent workers, firms still do not pay much attention to improving their models or colours, thus preventing them from becoming popular in Japan, according to Takata.
They should realise that the Japanese have different tastes from the Europeans and their favourite items are different from those exported to the EU, he said.
Besides, since Japanese houses were normally smaller than those in the EU, lacquer and other interior decoration items should also be smaller, he said.
The Japanese like light and elegant colours. They do not like embroidery products with many vignettes, according to Takata.
Producers interested in the Japanese market should hire Japanese designers to make products rather than try to sell what they already made, he suggested.
He advised Vietnamese firms to step up export of silk products since they enjoy a very low tax rate in Japan.
The Vietnamese Trade Office in Japan has said Viet Nam ranks fourth after mainland China, Thailand and Taiwan in export of interior decorative products to Japan. Japan has already overtaken the US to become the largest importer of Vietnamese office decoration products.
Small interior decorative items, picture frames, decorative lights, tablecloths and hand-made products are some of Japan’s popular imports.
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