Clearview National October 2014 - Issue 155 | Page 76

CONSERVATORIES

KON NI CHI WA,
PIONEER
The Japanese have an insatiable appetite for all things
British; and now that extends to conservatories.
Clearview reports on how one very English
company is changing the face of Japanese homes
»»Japanese people are really
buying into English and British culture,
according to Bruce Williams, International
Business Manager for Essex-based Pioneer
Trading Co, which has been working with
a Tokyo-based partner to sell ‘English
Conservatories’ since 2012. So successful is the
relationship that sales there have doubled in
2014 alone.
To say the Japanese like English
conservatories would be something of an
understatement. The Japanese like very
English conservatories. They like to look
out from them onto their English gardens –
preferably with roses – and they like to sit in
them and drink English tea. And they don’t
just want their conservatory to look the part;
they have to see the Union Flag flying on the
brochures and to know that it really was made
here in what they see as the homeland of the
conservatory.
“The people might love the English
conservatory,” answers Bruce, “But in reality
the products are heavily adapted from those

76 » OCT 2014 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M

we sell in the UK. And everything about their
market is completely different from ours, not
only in the product itself but also the route
to market and everything about the culture,
the people and the way they do business, so
trading with Japan is not something that can
be rushed into without a lot of thought. It
has taken us a great deal of time and focus to
bring sales up to where they are now, working
with an excellent partner there to make sure
our products and marketing are right.
“They are the best people in the world to
do business with but they do things in a very
particular way and you need to understand
that if you are to work with them. At Pioneer,
we already have experience of exporting
around Europe so, while every country is very
different, we were already prepared to look
and learn about the Japanese ways.”
“Our partner has invested in holding a
stock of all the agreed standard designs and
sizes, which we replenish as required. The
popularity of the standard size products may
seem strange to us with our preference for

‘decorated glass
and gothic arches
are very popular’
bespoke conservatories but many modern
Japanese houses are quite standardised so
they go together perfectly,” added Bruce. The
product itself needs to be not just English
looking but stereotypically so: “We have
produced specific designs to cater for that. For
example, decorated glass and gothic arches are
very popular. Also, a white frame is a must.
We are occasionally asked for colour but they
don’t want woodgrain at all. To the Japanese
taste, this is what an English conservatory
looks like and we do all we can to live up to
that image.”
The distributor partner also invests heavily
in home improvement exhibitions and Bruce
took this opportunity to work with Pioneer’s
partner to develop sales and marketing and
learn more about the market: “This included
visiting a customer’s home. We were greeted
with the Japanese tea ceremony in the main
house...then they took us to their conservatory
and served us tea the English way. At the
exhibition every piece of literature about the
conservatories carried the Union Flag. In
Japan their love of our culture is also matched
by their respect for the UK as a manufacturer
of quality.”
Bruce is of course tight lipped about how
Pioneer’s Japanese adventure began, adopting
some of the inscrutability of their Japanese
friends. But they are delighted that the Land
of the Rising Sun has extended to this small
corner of Essex.