The reserch by an inductive method about daily life as a consumer from a viewpoint of department-store and small retailer in Modern Japan

2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 15530235
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Economic history
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: NAKANISHI Satoru Nagoya University, Graduate School of Economics, Professor, 経済学研究科, 教授 (20251457)
• Project Period (FY): 2003 – 2005
• Keywords: department-store / small retailer / Modern Japan / daily life as a consumer / popular daily life / local capitalist

Research Abstract

The subject of this research is to analysis the aspect of popular daily life through using the historical material of retail stores to sell goods to end users in Modern Japan. As a matter of course, the various retail stores exist from the urban large store, department-store, to the rural small store, and they all support popular daily life as a consumer. The feature of this research is to analysis the relation between department-stores and small retail stores based on concrete cases from a viewpoint of popular daily life as a consumer. This research took up "Ito Gofukuten" that changed its name to "Matsuzakaya" in 1925 as the case of department-store, and analyzed its management development to use the historical material that was held by the main office of Matsuzakaya. Concerning small retail stores, this research analyzed "kayoicho (credit sales book)" that was held by end users. And the next conclusion was taken by the result to analysis.
1. Matsuzakaya aimed at the high-grade kimono fabrics store to sell goods to urban upper-class persons in the 1910s. But under the impact of the panic in 1920 and the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, people intensely required discount sales, so Matsuzakaya gradually made popular (discount sales on a large scale, expansion of the store space, and so forth) in and after the 1920s. However, the popularization of Matsuzakaya in the 1920s was advanced by the popular request and did not lead to the improvement of its profitability, because of the increase of the working expenses and the cost of equipment. Thereafter, under the panic from 1929 Matsuzakaya made popular in earnest, and it advanced its management reform based on a sense of cost.
2. As compared with the kimono fabrics sold on department-stores and small retail stores in the 1920s, about high-grade kimono fabrics, silk, the selling price of department-stores was much higher than that of small retail stores. But about normal-grade kimono fabrics, cotton, the selling price range of department-stores and small retail stores overlapped each other as a result of the popularization of department-stores. Against the background of that situation, the competition with department-stores and small retail stores became the serious social problem in and after the second half of the 1920s.