New Years Cards and Fried Chicken: Japan and Reservations For The Holiday Season

Look up the Japanese word "yoyaku" in a number of Japanese to English dictionaries, and you will probably find the following English words and terms: reservation, booking, appointment, subscription, and advanced order. Japanese speaking and writing in English almost always use reservation, but advanced order may be the most appropriate among these terms for New Years cards and fried chicken. The simple word order never appears in dictionaries for "yoyaku," but many native English speakers may think order is the most appropriate term. Even if we order New Years cards in September, most people should understand that we are planning to use the cards for New Years.

On September 1, I walked to the post office for the first time in about a month. A banner over the entrance encouraged people to order their New Years cards. Actually, the banner over the entrance encouraged people to advance order their New Years cards. Advertisements and stores clearly see that ordering and advance ordering/reserving are very different. An order is normally for an item or items that will either arrive soon or are already available. An advance order is usually something that will not arrive for some time because the item ordered is either not ready and will not be ready for some time because it is seasonal such as New Years cards and Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas, or because it is a new product that is not yet available.

For New Years cards and Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas, advance orders meet two purposes: enabling buyers to be confident that they will get what they want and enabling sellers to calculate the volume of demand and be ready to meet it. Considering that approximately 35 billion New Years cards are sent every year in Japan and that almost all of them are originally purchased from the post office, we can see why the post office would want to keep track of the volume and why they would want to start early. New Years cards in Japan are postcards, unlike the cards Hallmark manufactures. Still, 35 billion cards keep the post office busy, printing and delivering. The post office also needs to hire extra workers to deliver the cards on New Year's Day. If cards are posted by a certain date in December, the post office guarantees delivery on New Year's Day.

As to Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan, 20% of KFC's annual sales are at Christmas, based on the traditional American Christmas dinner. Well, what Kentucky Fried Chicken advertises in Japan as the traditional American Christmas dinner. Regardless, 20% of annual sales is a lot of chicken. We can understand KFC wanting to be prepared.

In Japan, additional items that you can advance order/reserve include summer gifts, year-end gifts, food, and cosmetics. The list may be endless. Advance ordering/reserving may be far more common in Japan than the United States for two reasons. First, advertising advance ordering/reserving is used in Japan as a promotional tool. Second, producers and sellers depend on advance ordering/reserving to help them estimate the quantities to be produced and purchased. This can be especially convenient in Japan where millions of people do things together at the same time very year.