The Three Types of Retailers in Japanese Social Life

Today's topic is about Japanese supermarket. This theme is what I really want to indroduce for the people who are going to live in Japan.

The locations captured in this topic is all in Gakuen-Mae area in Nara city, where is famous as residence area for middle-upper class people.



The first picture is local supermarket "Hussle."
Generally, such local supermarkets provide the products in a low price because of their local distribution systems. The inside of local supermarkets tends to looks messy, and workers do not put importance on displaying issues. Therefore, those supermarkets do not need to spend money on human resources and provice products relatively cheap.
Those types of retailers satisfy the customers not by services(including display) but by their low price strategy.






The second image is obviously the convenience store "LAWSON"
Generally, the convenience stores do not deal with raw materials but they provide ready-made products. As the name itself is "convenience", those kinds of stores deal with what the customer can use immediately. Even though the convenience stores are making effort on low cost strategy by using their strong buying power, they are supposed to open throughout the day and hire workers. Because of those costs, the price is settled relatively high.
Moreover, each convenience store has POS system(Point of Sale) in order to collect customers' information. Therefore, they always try to adjust the customer's interest into their business, and it is what their business mission.



















The last two pictures are integrated supermarket "Kinsyo" Those types of stores are the integration of many kinds of shops. Typically, they have food floor in their underground floor. Their services are very neat so that they can keep their high qualitified brand images. Because of their services, the cost is burdened and they provide their commodities relatively high.


Conclusion: the residence area "Gakuen-Mae" has many generation people from the young to the elder. Each retailers sets their marketing targets, and differenciate their strategies according to those targets customers.
Like this, Japanese retailers define their business missions, so that people living in Japan have rich choices when they consume depending on their current status.


For the foreign students in Hirakata city (I'm not sure they check this blog...), there are also these three types of retailers.
lokal supermarket- Top World
convenience store- Anywhere
integrated supermarket- Kehan Hyakkaten

extra link about JPN marketing
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_new_Japanese_consumer_2548