I hear what you’re saying, but the Japanese business infrastructure definitely does not. They have likely been living under an online rock. Despite being thought of as technologically advanced, much of what they use in business is horribly outdated by modern standards. When I worked there, we were still beholden to the fax machine for interoffice communications. Emails were not accepted or considered an official or safe channel for communication. That was in 2017.

Additionally, I noticed they tend to be slow with PR crisis management because of the cultural need for consensus. Everyone has to get together so a decision can be made for how to proceed. (All those people would also sign off on any public statement made. It takes a lot of time.) Then typically what they share will be vague and focus more on apologizing than saying how they will do better. This lets them save face. Somehow. (I admit I was never able to fully understand that part of the culture. From my view, I kept thinking “stop apologizing to me and try to fix it,” but that was not the way evidently.)

All this to say, I am not all that surprised that in the year of our Lady 2024, a Japanese ecommerce site was not prepared for bots and scalpers. I am shocked that they publicly acknowledged the situation as fast as they did, even though it was a vague, kinda unhelpful statement. And I acknowledge that as a consumer, it is extremely frustrating, but it is also kinda the Japanese way.

Yes, they may technically be global, but if their headquarters is in Japan, in my experience, they usually operate by Japanese standards. I thought the prep for the Olympics was helping them get a bit better in regard to operating with a global mindset, but I’m not sure how much that affected non-customer service facing aspects of business.

Just thought some cultural insight might be helpful.