Tokyo Blog

There’s a couple of reasons why I want to post about something as seemingly mundane as this, the first one being the price: Only ¥6700 for this Canon printer (£47, $69), which I thought was super cheap. The second point is the wrapping and prepping service I received at Yodobashi, Ueno. I had to wait several minutes for my printer to be ready, but I watched in amazement as the guy got busy getting my printer ready for transportation. You can see from the picture above that a lot of love went into it. One thing you won’t notice is that the entire box has been hand-wrapped in clear plastic and secured with sellotape. After that, the other things you can easily see from the photograph. For exmple, there’s a Yodobashi Camera branded sheet of paper attached to the top of the box to prevent damage from the hard plastic handle that you can just make out in the picture. After that, the box is wrapped in both directions with strapping which is stretched around the box and heat sealed using a special machine at the end of the counter in the store. The handle they use has a groove along the top, the perfect size for the strap to fit into. Once the final strap is tightened and sealed, the handle is extremely solid. But it doesn’t stop there. In order to prevent any discomfort from the handle or strap cutting into my fingers, a piece of bubblewrap is wrapped around the handle and taped. Finally, the guy doesn’t pass me the finished product over the counter. Instead, he walks around until he is on my side of the counter and hands me the box, bowing deeply. I propel myself down and out of the shop via the escalator, having been put in a better mood by the outstanding customer service in Japan (it was a dark, rainy day that day, hence the clear plastic wrap on the box).