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One cool thing about living in Japan is that, whether you’re in a bustling city or the open countryside, you’re never too far from a vending machine. True, you won’t find any canned ramen in many machines outside of Akihabara, but so long as there’s power to run one, you’re pretty much always within a few hundred metres of a machine selling both chilled and hot drinks.
We’ve seen some unusual things turning up in Japan’s vending machines over the years, but cans of peach soda with money taped to them is definitely a new one.
Spotted earlier this month, this photo has been shared thousands of times by Japanese Internet users, who marvelled at the curious ingenuity of the person who stocked this particular vending machine.
What we see here is a five yen coin haphazardly taped to the front of a can of Nectar; a sweet, peach-flavored soft drink. Why is there money taped to it? Because the drink, most likely due of the recent consumption tax rise in Japan, retails for 125 yen, meaning that anyone who wants to purchase it has a problem on their hands since vending machines neither accept nor dispense five yen coins. Even if you happened to be carrying the exact change, there would be no way to purchase this particular drink, and if you slot in 130 yen or more, your change is always going to be five yen short.
So, what’s an enterprising vending machine operator do? Raise the price of the drink to 130 yen and hope that people still want that peachy goodness? Shave five yen off and risk running into the red? Of course not! What they do is painstakingly tape a five yen coin to each and every can of the stuff, allowing consumers to peel their change from their drink, by which time it will be so chilled that it will feel extra special in their pocket.
Stay beautiful, Japan.
Source/photo: Enoge.org
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22 Comments
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Kittychosen
@presto345
As far as I know only Spain was the only European country to have ever used cent coins.
NathalieB
Never seen anyone in Japan pay with their phone except in a Starbucks. the technology is not as ubiquitous as some would have you believe and Japan is very much still cash based, athough things like Pasmp are being used in conbinis now.
presto345
Most EU countries no longer have 1, 2 cent pieces in circulation. Why does the consumer in Japan still bother with the aluminum piece, counting them out at the counter? Taking time to dig them out of their purses trying to make the change easier but just making it more complicated?
BurakuminDes
Good on them, nice little gesture - but lets just do away with the scrap-metal known as 1 and 5-yen pieces!
Fadamor
Sell it for 130 yen and be done with it. That would just mean it's that much longer before you have to raise the price again due to inflation. Manually taping a coin to a can is way too inefficient and a waste of manpower. On the other hand, maybe the company president's son needed a job and had no useful skills so they gave him this job?
Rene X Noriega
That's legit.
Carlos Godoy
My neighborhood machine in central tokyo still sells 100¥ cans.
amonaco
New to Japan but not to the world. I've seen the same technique / workaround it around 2005 in German cigarette vending machines.
Brian Wheway
why don't they just charge a 120 yen for the drink? because how much has it cost to tape 5 yen to each can? properly more than 5yen. but its a good marketing tool, just think how many times it been tweeted, Facebook,
smithinjapan
Found a vending machine that sells Schwepps Grape Juice for 30 yen (small bottle), and green and other types of tea (500ml) for 70 yen. That said, I would buy and try a can of this drink (which I have no doubt I would not like), just for the heartfelt gesture the company has done here. Yeah, come summer it'll create a lot of problems (until tax hits 10% officially), and coins might fall off into the machinery, but hey.
In any case, I don't want people like the government of pro tax increase people patting themselves on the back for this. This about one company that is doing what it feels is honest where it cannot do otherwise in the face of a greedy government that increases taxes because it cannot spend honestly. Those people have no right to say, "Yappari Nihon da!" Hats off to the company (or at least the people running the machine in question).
Onniyama
Big whup! 120 Yen is still too much. There are many machines that sell 100 Yen drinks.
SenseNotSoCommon
InakaRob,
This appeals to the brand of myopic parsimony that never haggles upstream with a tradesman or car dealer, but will insist on getting exact change from someone close, or "value for money" on trivia downstream.
roughneck
Ingenious! And Honest!
Suzu1
I'm confused. Recent articles in JT have indicated that Japanese consumers conveniently purchase most goods with a quick swipe of their phone. After all, wasn't Apple too late to the game since this technology is ubiquitous in Japan? Why would a specific coin combination in your pocket make any difference?
lucabrasi
If anybody out there is living on fear of money in whatever form, I promise to relieve you of any amount of the scary stuff.... ; )
inakaRob
smart idea? NO! its completely backwards. The can RETAILS for 125 yen. That isnt what he pays for it. He can sell it for 120 and still turn a profit. The time and effort he spent doing this is not worth to two or three yen per can he would loose. ALSO having some 5 yen coin haphazardly taped to a can would probably scare more people than attract. So sales would probably be less. There are plenty of drinks that retail at say 120, but plenty of owners put them "on sale" for 110. They still make money. This guy would have been 1000000 times smarter putting this can "on sale" for 120. Sales attract people not a drity coin tapped to a can.
Triumvere
Peach nectar is awesome.
zteano
And 5 yen in Japan is considered a good luck charm. It used to be 70 yen when I first started drinking that peach nectar and have been one of my favorite drink since. If you like peach and haven't tried it yet, you should.
nath
Great idea!!
SauloJpn
Just like those coins, that is a very cool thing to do!
Tamarama
Great idea.
Smart, them Japanese.