1. ASSIGNMENT 2 – OBSERVATION
1. The Setting
I spent the whole last week on a business trip to Tokyo – Japan so all the observation were from
6pm- 9pm after work. I went to 2 department stores, 2 urban clothing shops for youngster
(Uniqlo and Gap), an electronic store (Big Camera), a 100-Yen store, a general cosmetic store (in
the city). Being a foreigner in a non-English speaking country is something of disadvantage to
me, to a certain extend in this exercise.
2. Observations
a. Department stores
The department stores are multi-storey medium to high end (Keio Department Store and
Odakyu Department Store at Shinjuku station). I went there before several time during previous
trip to Tokyo, but this is the first time I paid attention to some of the details. What draw me in
these is the light. When you access from subway, there were signs with name of the stores in
English, and more importantly, the symbol of the store. Keio’s symbol is a crown. It is important
because names of the stores are identical with the name of the 2 subway lines in Tokyo, which is
likely to be misunderstood by a foreigner like me. If you access from the street, the contrast is
higher because it was cold and dark outside and warm and bright inside the stores. The fact that
department stores have their symbol well lit at the upper part of their building, visible from
many directions help me a great deal in locating the store from the street.
Both department stores have glass door, but Keio have some person welcome you at the main
entrance, similar to bell boy in hotels. It gave the impression that you are very much welcome
and appreciated in the place. In Keio I did not notice any particular scent in the atmosphere,
however in Odakyu the were a slight green tea scent near the escalator. Most of the buyers in
Odakyu are women and middle age, while buyers in Keio include more men and younger
women. In both stores, there are more seller than other lower end stores. All sellers are middle
aged women, I notice only 1 male seller at the women’s shoes areas. Seller were very attentive
and approach you about 3 minutes after you show up in their area. The Odakyu store had a bit
low ceiling, about 2.5 m which make me feel trapped, especially when enter the area after going
down from escalator.
One interesting thing is that both of the stores have only signs in Japanese, except for the SALE
words, so it was very difficult for a foreigner to know what the sale is about. Cashier are very
close to main pathway and escalator. However the sign for cashiers are small and difficult to
recognize. They do now allow picture taking inside the store, so I just managed to get only two
pictures. Securities of store are not so obvious except the sign of no picture taking.
The most remote area of the stores are for women ligeries.
Not all customer bought at least a product from the stores.

2. Music here are nice lounge music, which put you in a slow, relax mode, you seem to enjoy the
store and explore rather than seeking something to buy. In contrary, music in the urban clothing
store (Uniqlo and Gap) were pop music with faster rhythm, to encourage customer to buy more
I guess. Surprisingly, music in the cosmetic shop was some quick rap which made me just want
to get out of the store as soon as possible.
b. Urban clothing store and electronic store
These are place with more variety of customers, both men and women. The number of seller are
not enough for customer, customer have a hard time to find a non-occupied seller to ask for
information.
Uniqlo have both young and middle aged customers. Children’s cloth are in the most remote
area. The number of seller are not enough for customer, customer have a hard time to find a non-

3. occupied seller to ask for information. There are some sign in English but most of the details are in
Japanese, even some complicated discount policy. Security was visible
Big Camera: seller are young, both men and women. Buyer are mostly young men, and about
1/3 are middle age and women. Easy to find the price and technical specification of products. However
some products such as mobile phone goes with plan, and this requirement are not in English. Sellers
have difficulties explaining this to customers. Not all customer were buyers, about 60% were browser
Gap store had very customer welcome atmosphere, nice location, nice entrance, easy to get
noticed. Products are organized in a specific way identical to all Gap store around the world. At the
entrance you can have a glance at the whole of store and can easy locate the area of the product you
are looking for. If you just browse, all product are at eye level, only some at higher glance. Ceiling of
store are high enough so you don’t feel trapped. There are sufficient number of staff, very attentive,
approach customer about 4 minutes after entrance.
c. 100 yen store at Harajuku station

4. Very crowded with all kind of customer, about 1/3 are foreigner, all of them bought
something. A lot of products, very systematic way of product arrangement. All sign in both English and
Japanese, help customer a great deal. Clear store map at the stair, customer can easily locate products
they need and browsing for and buy product they don’t actually need.
d. Cosmetic store
- Very customer - welcome entrance, open wide
- Most customers and seller are women from 15-35
- Easy to notice sale sign and cashier sign, visible from outside. Probably the main target
customer are passer-by
- Not very logical arrangement of products, or because all sign in Japanese so I could not
understand the logic of product arrangements. Sometimes products are organize by
function, for example most of the daily toiletries are in the street-level floor and make
up are at the basement. However I still find so much eye make up products at the street
level floor. Maybe they had special promotion, or this is consider very basic need for all
customers.

6. 3. Insight
- The more expensive the store, the less density of the products. Even in the same store, the
sale are more crowded with products than in the more expensive area
- The more expensive the store, the more seller they have and sellers are faster in
approaching customer.
- The less expensive store are more well-lit, probably easier for customer to locate products
- The faster life span of product – or the cheaper the product, the faster rhythm the music in
the store
- Store arrangement may be very very much influenced by local culture. While I think the
environment in the Gap Store should attract customer the most, because of the light, high
ceiling, open door entrance, visibility of the store plan at entrance, number of customers at
the store was very limited, compare to other store I visited on the same day.
4. Opportunities
I don’t know if these can be consider opportunities, I could not find things which are clearly
business opportunity or just some recommendations:

7. - Stores should all have symbol for easier recognition
- Stores should have signs in English, especially when the sale and discount are complicated
(buy 2, discount 990 Y on the second one, etc). Otherwise they need to create some
pictures/symbol to illustrate this, so you don’t even need language. One may consider
inventing a symbol for this kind of discount, register it and sell to all store in a sticker form
so that they can stick this to the rack. That way you can minimize the number of seller which
used to have to explain the condition to international customer in sign language. I think
people in Japan are really in to the cute factor, so the symbol need to be cute to attract
local customer.