Closure of AKB48 official cafe and shop in Singapore

Lolol. There's SeaA already. But they really aren't that good. They came for AFA12 and sang God Knows in english

 

I hope they'll replace it by making one at jakarta
I'm planning to visit spore again though next year and visit it , but..... [sealed]

 

I know when I first heard about the Singapore store (and then Hong Kong store), I was really jealous thinking that they should have a branch in Calfornia too or something but I realized how bad for business it would be. It wouldn't be surprising to know that this branch closed down.

 

Will AKB48 or one of its sister groups be performing in Singapore early next year like they did this year ?

 

They just about outclassed by Babymetal.

 

It's a little unfair to blame it on the we-know-what-wave-it-is because both sides have different ways of tackling the public. The J-culture as we know it has quite huge barriers not only limited to language but also general norms (in my country anyway; not sure about others).

I gave K somewhat of a shot and yet I still don't very much like it save for a certain female solo artist. So, all the disliking for K-pop aside, K culture seems pretty decent, and the Korean language is actually quite simple to pick up. As far as distribution is concerned, we all know AKB (and family) is pretty restricted to Japan and other smaller areas of interest.

Well, to find out the true reason is kinda easy. For about 3 years now I've known about all this 48 stuff (yes I know some of you pros have been here longer ) but it took me nothing more than an hour to jump into Korean culture. Note the difference though, I'm not referring to just K-pop; in fact I still pretty much can't like it so quickly. What is it that makes it so easy for K to spread around?

So in other words, there's this inhibiting factor that drove the business away. It could be the school uniform concept, the fact that Japan is so well known with h*nt*i and other non-minor stuff, so that's just a few of them. Then there's the fact that it's an idol-based group with more than 200 members combined, not your everyday numbers. There's also the language barriers and cultural barriers as quoted, and so on so forth. Note though that these are just some guesses and estimates I have.. I can be wrong.

Back to the shop though, I personally think it wasn't too successful. It's also quite important to note that Japanese stuff are really expensive to certain countries including mine. With references, Korean artist albums are actually cheaper than a typical Japanese single, even more so when compared to a 48 single (correct me if I'm wrong), not to mention the taxation rates in Singapore are actually quite high.

This much is all I have in opinion though.. All-in-all I'm just uneasy with the unreasonability with the we-know-what-wave-it-is blaming because I myself used to criticize this a long time ago. Kinda made me realize how stupid and unreasonable I was back then for outright rejecting it.

My only suggestion for improvement here is to understand how other parties do it. You can't just simply force people to like a certain brand. The whole "don't like, don't buy" rule is also one prominent factor so they definitely have to find some way of making them easily likeable. So there we go, my two cents.

Feel free to add on, but please refrain from flaming! :music:

 

Well, in that case I would rather the management to cut down to a concert every 2 months.... At least some fans won't be taken for granted back then, and would appreciate how lucky we were to have AKB concerts....

Times when I read akb48 Singapore Facebook, when they announced the names of the performers, I feel sad to read comments like,'oh, just some nobody members, no Senbatsu members. Shall save my money and wait for next time....' well, the ticket is only SGD$50, very cheap, some people are getting this 2 concerts per month privilege for granted, if only they though about how hard it is even to get a theatre ticket in Japan, then they will know. [flip] <----this is my reaction to them. For me, I like and respect AKB as a whole, I feel very sad now, that I can't even see the other non senbatsu members who are able to come Singapore, like Nacchi!

 

Bingo. The high premium Japanese pricing is one of things that keeps people from buying (same thing with animu in America, where a known distributor is trying to sell shows with pricing equivalent to Japan retail); for example, buying an original imported Japanese hobby magazine alone locally is worth more than the price of the paperback copy of, say, The Hunger Games.

So we can only stare at that damned copy of, ahem, Megami or Newtype being displayed at the local mall.

 

I guess many of us could see it coming. The cafe and shop's failure is a combination of many factors.
in the first place, over 50% of new businesses fail in their first 5 years, so it's not easy to begin with.

And about K-wave's stealing the market share, it's not exactly true, looking at the recent concerts by Kpop stars now, some couldn't even finish selling 70% of the tickets. And SMTOWN, SHINee's concerts were selling at a discount.

location: Scape being secluded, away from Orchard's main street. I've come across tourists' who had a hard time locating Scape to go to the cafe. Anyway, Scape is struggling to survive, they just did a revamp to their underground recently.

rental: A single shop space in Singapore can cost up to 5 figures per month.

concerts: I'm not sure why the management didn't do more advertising on tv, radio, newspapers or magazines. Even the recent Perfume concert was advertised on channel 8. There is a limit to how far the news can reach the general public with the girls distributing flyers on the street.
The concert was also annouced under short notice everytime, and people might not be able to react in time.

products: Compare to Taiwan and Hong Kong, the SG stocks were almost pathetic, not replenished for months, lack of exclusive SG items, not to mention they are pricey. How about selling some useful items eg calendar, clocks.. things that are available in TW but not here?

facebook / online presence: Taiwan and Hong Kong Facebooks are always full of activities, news from 48sphere, holding dance competitions, having local senbatsu sousenkyo... what happened to Singapore's? there is nothing left besides the birthday updates.

The space is yours, there were so many things you could do.
Turn a section into a museum? an exhibition space? having lifesize standees for photo taking purpose? display the girls' costumes? having the cafe girls for street performances every week? some may require Japan's help, some not.

I'm sure Japan side did not see profits coming, and hence gradually direct their efforts to other areas such as the China market.

It may be a real pity, but it's just not viable to have the cafe and shop for long term in Singapore.

All i wish is for them to still have concerts here, 2 or 3 times a year, then they can sell their merchandises at the same time, that might be easier for the management to survive.

 

Sorry if it's just me feeling like a minority here in my country, because of the hype and the rabid fandom.

 

Nah it's okay, different people have different exposures after all. In whichever case though, while it's true that the K-wave is growing, it's also good to note that some places need time to absorb them. Here in Malaysia though, it's being quite generally accepted, and real quickly too. Combine that with the fact that there are many Koreans here and that should explain why Malaysia has no market for J stuff. Plus Malaysia had really bad history with Japan relating to the war and stuff but I'll just leave it at that..

In any case, they definitely need a new marketing strategy or some method of normalizing the concept. K did it somehow, I don't see why J can't.

 

^ well, for now, Japanese don't really need overseas support, they get larger revenue from their homeland.

 

^
More of like their only market is their homeland.

 

^ but it's true they don't need any other market. Unless Japan's market is collapsing.

 

First of all, why is everyone so surprised?? The 48concerts as most people know was only a 1-year contract. And the shop and the cafe were mostly relevant cause of these concerts. Now that these concerts have stopped, this has made the shop and cafe rather redundant imo.

Hmms I think Japanese acts in Malaysia has been starting slowly but surely though. I've been following the Japanese music scene since 2007 now and I've never seen any effort really put into it until 2012. Like we had our first Japanese idol group Momoiro Clover Z perform a free live during Hari Belia (Youth Day) in Putrajaya. There as well was Nakagawa Shoko who is one of the biggest anime artists today. We also had our very first Anime Festival Asia with artists like FLOW, Kalafina and etc (who are pretty darn big names btw). There was also Miyavi (a very famous JRock guitarist). Then most recently as you may know, we had SCANDAL which is a really famous girl pop/rock band, and they mostly got to come cause of their anime tie-ins as well but from what I've heard, the concert went on really well. And next year Malaysia will also have JRock Evolution which normally invites pretty big names in Japanese Rock.

Singapore always has Japanese artists coming in, I don't know why they complain. Haha.

Anyhow, but I am really pleased to see that Japanese artists as well as management from the Malaysian side I suppose are actually beginning to make an effort. It's definitely going in the right direction. So I really won't say they aren't doing anything. They may not have been in the past, but 2012 has really been the year for Malaysia. Hoping even better in 2013.

 

i hve planned to visit there next year,
but now its about to close

 

Yep , it make me jealous that they have AKB store in their country , just hope they will make another branch in country where many 48fans reside there .

 

Well, it's no use for a store if the only thing worth going there for is the damn rare concerts or to look at overpriced goods. Where even buying online can be cheaper ...

 

you're right , many fans prefer to buy goods through online rather than from the shop , even in Indonesia most fans prefer to buy fanmade goods .
sadly , it's better for the shop to be closed to prevent more bankruptcy

I assume many fans can't do anything , the overpriced goods itself 'killed' many of theirs wallet

 

Well... My wallet got busted because of my impulse the first time I went there