Dollar OK: Japanese Stores Accept US Dollars
Want to take advantage of the strong yen without leaving Japan? According to this news report, businesses near Yokota Air Base have started accepting US Dollars:
The stores want to attract business from Americans, but they are also marketing this to Japanese people who are hunting for good deals. When you compare the prices listed in yen and dollars, the dollar prices tend to be much better:
- A Chinese restaurant offers a meal for $10 / 1,110 yen. [$10 = about 850 yen]
- An “American Antiques” shop is selling glasses for $10 / 1,800 yen.
- An apparel shop is selling a USAF sweater for $10 or 4,000 yen.
The association of local shops adjusts its yen/dollar exchange rate every Monday. At the time this report aired, the actual yen to one dollar exchange rate was around 84 or 85, and the shops were offering to change money at a rate of 82 to one dollar.
The whole thing feels like a trick: are they really doing this to attract business from Americans? If so, the whole effort seems poorly executed. You can also see from the video clip that the signs the stores are putting up are mostly written in Japanese, and that antique store even managed to misspell the word “dollar.” If their real goal was to get members of the US military to spend their money, they probably should have hired a few English-speakers to help them make nice English language signs. The prices also seem fishy: that Chinese restaurant’s $10 meal looks like it shouldn’t even be worth that much, and it seems highly unlikely that members of the US military would need to buy a USAF sweater at an off-base store. The whole thing feels like a gimmick that is designed to fool unsuspecting Japanese into buying products for prices that aren’t especially cheap.
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