With video games, baby strollers and manicure kits to welcome visitors, dealers at a Toyota showroom in suburban Tokyo are working to convince buyers that today's models have nothing to do with their parents' boring old cars.
"We try to create a warm feeling, especially to appeal to young women, so they feel they can drop by casually," said Hiroshi Ishizawa at the dealership, which also holds costume parties and raffles featuring DVD recorders as prizes in an effort to win customers.
Efforts of this kind by Toyota dealers have paid off both at home and abroad. This past week, the Japanese automaker marked its second straight year of record profit, earning 1.16 trillion yen for the 12 months that ended March 31, up 55 percent from the previous year.