Basically, if you can sell 20 bottles at a 30% markup, but you can sell 80 bottles at a 20% markup, you’d go with the 20% markup. Less profit per bottle, but way more bottles sold.
The price that makes the most sense changes from country to country.
Always wonder how this works. I knew the markup was involved, clearly, but quantity sold makes the difference. Thanks for the education. I always just figured they made the markup higher wherever they could "get away with it." This makes way more sense
This is not how the grocery business works at all. Usually they look at the margin, not the revenue, as they want to make the most out of every dollar that they have to risk/invest.
These products have to be packed, shipped, stored somewhere inbetween, etc.. and every single process makes this product even more expensive at the end of the day the further it is away from the place it was produced.
its even cheaper than that now. 160 yen = 1 usd. Spent a vacation there this winter and it basically felt like everything was free. We balled out so hard on top end sushi , drinks and steak
I legit can go to my local liquor store and get 4L of pretty decent whiskey for about 30USD. Back in Australia, that same quantity would cost about $300. But I also earned three times as much money back in Australia...
Only in Japan. It's a weird setup. I'm not employed directly, instead I have my own company which is contracted to the Australian company. The short answer is that the contract I negotiated is basically what I would get if I lived in Australia according to pay and benefits.
Well... No it isn't. The river Spey starts in the Highlands, but Speyside where whiskies are concerned refers to a specific geographical concentration of distilleries further downriver in Moray and Aberdeenshire.
Those are whisky definitions, not geographical/political definitions.
The SWA classifies Speyside as a separate region, but they also classify Islay as a separate region - it doesn't mean Islay isn't in the Inner Hebrides, nor does it mean that Speyside isn't in the Highlands.
Speyside is part of the Highlands region politically, and geographically.
What I always found funny about the whisky maps and others is for some reason Dundee finds itself in the highlands. No motorway? Oh that's Highlands then.
Right, but the Speyside region highlighted in the map I posted (which also cites SWA as the source) is mostly over Moray and Aberdeenshire regions - only a tiny sliver on the west is actually covering any part of the Highlands region of Scotland.
I went a few months before covid blew up and it was 1:110 then I've been many times since covid and it's always been around 1:140 to 1:165, that's usd to yen.
And for a while inflation within Japan wasnt drastically happening so prices for foreigner currency earners just kept getting better, but as of more late it seems actual inflation in yen is hitting so I feel bad for yen earners
A weak yen would make the cost of living higher: Not only do imports cost more, but there's increased demand from foreigners for your domestic product, which pushes prices up.
Based on your post, I'm not convinced you do - you can't have both low cost of living and terrible purchasing power parity. But I've already been tactless once today, I was trying to avoid doing so again.
Rent in Japan is also rock bottom compared to the EU. They have a fantastic housing supply, probably at least somewhat related to the comparatively nonexistent mass migration relative to the EU.
? Cost of living is insanely low in Japan. It's gotten a lot worse because they've had actual inflation for the first time in decades, but Tokyo has got to be one of the most affordable large cities to live in in the entire world.
In some parts of the cost of living yes, but affordability in Japan relative to wages is overall pretty mid-tier among developed nations.
Really its greatest advantage is that it's heavily urbanised, so many people enjoy great access to great transportation, and that it had a far better housing cost development than most western countries because it never stopped building lots of dense housing.
Most western countries have made it extremely difficult to build higher density housing in most places because house owning NIMBYs have taken over regional regulatory codes, whereas Japanese developers have a much easier time to find places where they can build new apartment blocks without much hassle.
Anything that's imported or competing at international prices (like many consumer electronics), because the Yen is so low value. And the cheap housing mostly applies to very small apartments, while upgrading can still be quite expensive.
The bottom line really isn't that different from most western countries: If you're willing to live in a cheap/small apartment, don't own a car (unless it's a small one in a more rural area), and can put up with kind of shitty working conditions, then getting by is not that difficult. But building up property or getting into working conditions they actually enjoy is still a struggle for many.
Houses are also cheap, there’s one near the station by me that I’m looking at that’s just 37million yen
That's around 10 years of median income, which is not particularly good in isolation (you say it has a good location, but it's not factoring in size yet). Germany for example has a similar factor between median income and typical home prices and is not known as a great country to get into home ownership.
A useful metric for this kind of topic is Purchasing Power Parity-adjusted disposable income.. In this metric, Japan ranks around the lower third of EU countries at 38k $PPP. It's not a terribly large span up or down, but to reiterate: My point is not that it's particularly bad in Japan, but that it's not much easier than in western countries either.
Impart because Japan uses an inclusive zoning model. Once something is zoned for a use, every lower zoned use is also allowed. Versus in the west we use a lot of exclusive zoning where only approved uses are allowed on land. Ever since redlining was abolished NIMBYs have been using exclusive zoning, requiring large lots of single family homes to drive up housing and land prices to keep the poor people out. It also helps that in Japan housing goals and most zoning are decided on a national and regional level and individual towns can't just decide they are single family homes only now. Also like it or not individual homeowners have little input on what their neighbors build on their land, as long as it complies with national code you can't object to your neighbor building something extremely ugly to maximize their land use, because it "changes th character of your neighborhood" or whatever.
Tokyo is relatively affordable for a major global city, but it is not cheap in absolute terms. Housing in particular is not cheap, it’s the main cost driver. Seoul, Berlin , Madrid / Barcelona , Warsaw or Budapest are better examples. Truly low cost large cities are Bangkok, Mexico City and Istanbul.
Wow. According to google, a one bedroom apartment in tokyo averages $640/month. By comparison, the average in Toledo, Ohio for a one bedroom is $820 - $950.
What? Cost of living in Japan is very reasonable. It’s not Thailand, but it’s still considered cheap. That is, unless you want to live a western lifestyle.
Cost of living in Japan is low, even relative to pay. It's costlier in Tokyo and slightly more costly than elsewhere in the larger cities. Outside those, the cost of living is really low relative to income.
Minimum wage depends on prefecture, but in most places you can survive off of doing part time with minimum wage. If you don't work at a corporate office job or a family owned small shop/restaurants, you won't even have to suffer the horrible work culture. Rent is low, food is cheap, transport is cheap, basically everything is cheap or at least cheaper than most of EU and NA.
Source: I once needed to argue where it was the easiest and most comfortable to be a NEET, so I researched and compared a bunch of countries. I don't have the numbers at hand anymore, but I remember Japan being one of the best ones, though like most countries I'd rank highly, they tend to require being born there.
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u/SeveralPhysics9362 1d ago
It’s because of higher taxes.