ABSTRACT
Japanese consumers weren't supposed to want refrigerators like the big General Electric model in Hiroshi and Yukie Tanaka's living room. The refrigerator's journey to the Tanakas' Yokohama apartment from a GE factory in Kentucky broke all the rules: that exporters must tailor their products to Japanese tastes; foreigners must find Japanese partners to negotiate the distribution system; big American home appliances will not sell in Japan at any price. For years, many U.S. marketers tried hard to tap into the Japanese market without much success. But in the mid-1990s, more Japanese women worked after marriage and could not shop for food daily as their mothers had. Big, inexpensive, two-door refrigerators suddenly made sense. 1
