Review: Yodobashi Camera

Let’s start with scale. Where are we between global flagship and neighborhood boutique?
The Akihabara location for popular retail chain Yodobashi Camera is believed to be the largest electronics store in the world. The nine-story building (not counting the six underground parking levels) dominates the east side of Akihabara station, and from the outside looks more like a futuristic citadel than a shopping complex. The sterile interior is a hive of activity, as over a hundred daily staff members welcome and assist an endless stream of shoppers.

Excellent! What can we find here, or what should we look for?
Yodobashi sells an eye-popping laundry list of electronics equipment. Virtually any electronic product is available somewhere in the store, and from nearly every manufacturer under the sun. The Akihabara Apple Store is also located on the first floor. Yodobashi got its start selling cameras in 1960 and maintains a high degree of fastidiousness where this product in concerned. (Company founder and still CEO Terukazu Fujisawa made headlines in 2014 when he bought the only camera to have gone to the moon and back, a Hasselblad 500 from the Apollo 15 mission.) In addition to the complete suite of electronics, visitors will find toys, yoga mats, eyeglasses, and even unicycles for sale. As if that weren't enough, the 9th floor has an indoor driving range and batting center. All that activity might leave shoppers too hungry to make it back down to street level to eat, so Yodobashi was good enough to make the entire 8th floor a food court with 30 sit-down restaurants, one of which is also a craft beer bar.

If money’s no object, what goes in the cart?
Top of the line cameras are the device du jour here, and the staff on this floor is particularly used to handling tourists.

And … what if we’re on a strict budget?
There's even a camera repair counter on the third floor, which is extremely handy if anything happens to your photographic equipment while traveling.

Who else shops here?
Yodobashi has something for everyone, and is worth visiting just to marvel at the store's gargantuan scale.

Any secret tips, or “don’t go home without” purchases?Don't miss the eighth and ninth floors. The batting center is a great way to blow off some steam if the Tokyo crowds have been getting under your skin.