Hacker News Reader

Comment by xt00 | Hacker News Reader

If you do online check in with a japanese airline like ANA or JAL its kind of hilarious how many things you have to click to confirm just about everything... "Click here to go to online check in", then you are there and its like "click here to start checking in online"... then its like "type confirmation number here.." etc.. all on separate pages like we are engaging some kind of nuclear code sequence that requires multiple stages of fail-safes where you can go back at any moment.. yes the webpages in japan are hilariously over complex for a non-japanese audience all with the goal of ensuring you don't accidentally do the wrong thing.. the idea of one-click buying on amazon I have a feeling either rarely exists or is probably actually 2 clicks somehow..

View on HN

That resembles some paper processes in Japan, e.g. to get an international conference trip refunded (as a PhD student) I need to submit around seven forms: 1. Application for travel 2. Acceptance for travel 3. Schedule 4. Request for payment of conference entrance fee 5. Export control form 6. Travel Report 7. Notice of absence

Because most of these are also required for travelling within Japan I sometimes just don't bother asking for a refund.

That sounds like any academic institute I’ve come across. After I did the fleet of forms, they managed to credit the money to someone else who shared the same last name, and then send them a crabby message demanding repayment. Happened the next few times as well. What permanently corrected this behaviour was me getting the recipient to send the money directly to me minus a transaction fee, theb asking for it to be refunded. Good times.

The only plausible explanation for this is if they store the names in order like: <Last Name> <First Initial> and somehow just assume the first Smith J is correct.

Maybe, they ask for account number, address, employee number etc. None of those other details matched.

Since you mention Amazon: They do have massive success in Japan, especially over the last few years. Same day delivery got to Japanese cities 1-2 years earlier than in the US I think, at least we got it in Tokyo for a while now. So I think the lack of polish in web design is actually a good chance for disruption by Western technology companies, it's just that you have to get all the other stuff just right to exceed in Japan (e.g. good localization, high levels of customer service, precision in delivery).

The same-day delivery is spot on and probably the best in any Amazon-serviced country. They never missed the 2h time window I picked. Obviously there've never been any dents in the packaging as well.

Oh cool, so do they actually have "Buy it now with 1-click" on the amazon japan webpage? I'm super curious if they have it or if its actually used by people?

they have. Its used.

It's there.

Interestingly, for anything that is not Prime, Amazon almost never gives me right estimates for delivery. In most cases it tells me stuff will be delivered within 3 to 5 days, when they actually are delivered the next day. (I live in Japan, not even in a large city)

> In most cases it tells me stuff will be delivered within 3 to 5 days, when they actually are delivered the next day.

I've observed the same in Germany. I think these pessimistic estimates are on purpose, to convince unknowing customers to subscribe to Prime because of the better estimates.

Interesting. I'm surprised that this is successful in Japan given the proliferation of Takkyubins.

Most things I buy on Amazon come through Yamato, and a few through Sagawa or the Post office, so in fact, Amazon uses Takkyuubins. (I live in Japan)

Tangentially, takkyuubin is actually a trademark by Yamato, and the Ghibli movie, Majou no takkyuubin was actually sponsored by Yamato, and is one of the reasons there is a black cat in the movie (their emblem). The generic term is takuhaibin (宅配便).

> Tangentially, takkyuubin is actually a trademark by Yamato, and the Ghibli movie, Majou no takkyuubin was actually sponsored by Yamato, and is one of the reasons there is a black cat in the movie (their emblem). The generic term is takuhaibin (宅配便).

Ahhhh. I've seen Ta-q-bin which obviously seems trademarked, but not realized takkyuubin vs takuhaibin.

Their service is also called Kuroneko, black cat, by most people.

Their web site is even kuronekoyamato.co.jp.

Amazon definitely profits from the existing delivery network here - no need for them to build this themselves, and it would be pretty hard to compete with anyways.

Delivery in Japan boggles my mind to be honest, I'd love to get an account of their cost structures - the logistics behind making this scale at the existing price point must be amazing and should probably be studied extensively in the west.

Cramming 110 million people almost entirely along the coastline of a California-sized country also helps.

Exactly, imagine the traffic if it was organized like the US or Europe.

JAL is the single worst airline website I've ever used. It had the looks and responsiveness of something out of 1998. Apparently they were planning to renovate it when I was booking a ticket, so they had a big warning of 15 day (!) downtime while I was browsing it.

Hilarious!!!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com