Toto Ltd. is maker of a top-of-the-line piece of "sanitaryware," including such standard features as a heated seat, front and back washing jets, blow drying, a digital timer and a recording of water flushing to cover any embarrassing noises.
The techno-toilet may sound appealing, but sanitaryware newbies need to know that it's not all pleasantly warm gusts of air.
Tara, 26, stopping at a hardware store in Shinjuku on her way home from work at a Japanese advertising firm, agreed to recount her worst bathroom moment on condition that her last name be withheld.
"These toilets can really take you by surprise," confided Tara, a native of Midland, Texas, where the toilets are nothing fancy.
Tara's office bathroom has a model with a control console looking like "something out of the space shuttle." One day, she leaned forward and pressed the wrong button. A bidet nozzle shot a jet of water up into the air - and splashed a broad wet line down the back of her clothing before she could find the "stop" button. She slunk out of the office early that day.
"I don't push any of those buttons any more. I just count on the automatic flush to work," she said sheepishly. "I would never, ever buy one."
Toilet users are a tough crowd.
Sales for Toto, Japan's top toilet manufacturer with an estimated 68 to 75 percent of the market, have plummeted since the recession began. The company reported sales were down 11 percent in 1997, though it still had a profit of about $30 million. This year, the company is looking at a loss of $87 million.
Hopes lie overseas
Like many Japanese manufacturers, Toto's hopes lie overseas. Spokesmen have said the company is counting on new products and on expanding markets in the U.S. and eventually, Europe, to save the day.
Last week, at the company's showroom on two upper floors of a Tokyo high-rise, many shoppers were eyeing - but few buying - Toto's combination toilet and bidet, the "Washlet." Some even tested the device personally in the special "Trylet" bathroom stalls.
"Sugoi (wow)," said Toshihide Ito, who with his wife was browsing among the more elaborate models, which run about $2,000 to $4,000. He investigated a toilet whose seat lifts up to help an elderly or handicapped person to his feet. The toilet had more than a dozen cables emerging in a tangle from its base.
The Itos, in their 60s, left without buying anything. "Very useful, but very expensive," he said, looking out the window at the Tokyo skyline. "This is not a good time."
Growing in U.S.
Toto USA, based in Morrow, Ga., reports a healthier picture. A wholly owned subsidiary of Toto Ltd., Toto has gained 5 to 6 percent of the U.S. market, up from 4 to 5 percent in 1997, said spokesman Newbold Warden. The U.S. company, now 7 years old, has opened two Georgia production plants and has 500 employees.
"They're not doing so hot in Japan because of the economic situation. It always hurts when the building industry slows down," Warden said. "But we're completely unaffected here."
The company had a head start in the U.S. market because Toto Ltd. had been refining the 1.6 gallon-per-flush toilet since the 1970s, when water shortages struck Tokyo. When American companies had to adopt the smaller flush standard, it took them a few years to create toilets that really pleased customers, Warden says: "Meanwhile, our toilets actually worked."
Toto's researchers - the parent company employs 1,500 engineers - found that Americans don't like mechanical noises underneath them. They want the bidet-style wash, but no blow dryer, please. And some of the most popular Japanese features, for instance the artificial flushing noise, just don't translate well between cultures.
The 'Zoe'
Toto USA ended up bringing a single, simplified product in this category to the U.S. market: the Zoe. A separate seat that fits on top of a standard American toilet bowl, the Zoe costs about $600. A bidet nozzle emerges from under the seat at the touch of a remote control. Product literature claims that an automatic deodorizing system eliminates toilet odor in an instant. The lid also has a "soft-closing feature."
In Japan, where most homes are not centrally heated, the adjustable heated seat is the No. 1 attraction of the high-tech toilets. In the U.S., the warmed-up seat became an option that could be selected for an extra $100.
With the success of the Zoe, Toto USA's sales closed in on $100 million in 1998, Warden says.
But American firms, which still dominate the domestic market, say they are not worried about losing out to Toto's bottom-up approach.
"We just don't see a demand for this type of product from our customer base," says Don Gamble, director of marketing for Eljin Plumbing Ware in Dallas, Texas. Eljin, which is owned by U.S. Industries, has about a 26 percent market share. American Standard, Kohler and Briggs have most of the rest of the market.
"If we saw a void, we would try to fill it. Right now, we do not offer any product with these little, high-tech features," Gamble says.
His company is focusing instead on its new Q-Jet series, toilets that have a very quiet flush, low profile and sleek look. Eljin's toilets list at prices ranging from $115 to $900.
Top-of-the-line not cost-effective
In fact, it's unlikely that American plumbing supply stores will be stocked with the most technologically advanced toilets - the $4,000 type - anytime soon.
For one thing, American plumbers lack the training and expertise to repair these products.
"If something were to go wrong, you'd need the skills of both a contractor and a VCR repairman to fix one of these things," Warden said. "And the kind of people that pay $4,000 for a toilet expect you to put someone on a plane to come take care of it if there's a problem. Right now, it's not cost-effective."
For another, Americans as a group prefer not to think about the bathroom at all. Since 19th century health reformers started promoting tile, enamel and metal for bathroom dicor rather than germ-laden carpet and wood, the American image of the bathroom has been a bare, clinical place to scour clean and get out of.
"Japan is a mature market for these integrated toilets. In the U.S. you can hardly talk about bathroom hygiene. It's hard to overcome a taboo, so we're going slowly," he says.
In contrast, the Japanese seem to have no trouble talking about toilets, and in detail, at that. The Japan Toilet Association, an independent study group, has 100 members and is chaired by a distinguished retired professor. There are dozens of Japan-based web sites dedicated to musings about toilets or photos of toilets.
Warden notes that in the 1960s, people thought the idea of whirlpool jets in a bathtub were frivolous.
"They kept saying, 'Who needs bubbles in a bathtub?'" he says. "Now you'd hardly think of designing a house without one."
