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Comment by panny | Hacker News Reader

Why are Japanese burgers significantly cheaper than the ones in the US? A Big Mac is 500 yen, that's like $3.

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/en/products/1210/

Big Macs haven't been that cheap since 2008 in the US.

If you've been to Japan any time recently you'd probably know that just about everything is cheaper in Japan, especially food and drink. I've been twice, most recently back in October, and I'm blown away by how relatively affordable things are. USD goes a long long way in Japan.

Oddly I could not find any cheaply priced Japanese Whiskey, and I looked around quite a bit. It was all about as much or more than what I could get it for in the states.

Japan's salaries are much lower than those in the US. Even adjusted to PPP, the median salary in Japan is still significantly lower that in the US. Few would be able to afford food at US price levels.

    > Oddly I could not find any cheaply priced Japanese Whiskey

Any bog-standard supermarket will carry a variety of very low end Japanese Whiskeys. You can easily find 750ml for about 1000 yen. It won't poison you(!), but it is pretty rough. At this price point, it is rarely drunk neat. Also, Japan has nationwide uniform alcohol taxes. Alcohol taxes vary widely in the US by jurisdiction.

I mean more like, I'd look for the stuff that's like $300-$400 in the US at various places that would sell it in Japan and generally speaking it was more expensive in the stores in Japan after conversion. I was expecting it'd be like similar price or less. So I opted to just buy the imports in the US.

Oh, I misread your original post. You are looking for the "home country discount". Japan doesn't really have it for most things that are exported.

Our visits to Uniqlo would say differently!

Three decades of deflation will do that. That ended a few years ago, but there's clearly lingering effects.

Probably like 50%+ of the cost of restaurant food is labor and rent. Labor and rent are cheaper in Japan than in the US.

I don't know about McD's exactly, but food in general is very cheap in Japan compared to the U.S.

Source: I watch a lot of behind the scenes restaurant videos on YouTube and I'm always shocked at the prices. Most dishes are cheaper than if I were to go to the grocery store and cook it myself...

The US median salary is twice that of Japan, prices follow what people can afford to pay.

Their meat also tastes like actual food compared to the US. McDonalds Japan is more like a gourmet meal experience, everything is delicious and the service is much faster and way more polite and pleasant in my experience.

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