(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Major Japanese Department Store Sees Rise in Web Shopping
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August 28, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Takashimaya Co., Ltd., a major Japanese department
store, said its Web shopping rose to 27 million yen (US$186,000) for
June and July this year.
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That's about 13 times the online sales of the same period last year.
The store said giving advice to clients about shopping and other individual
customer services were effective in increasing sales.
Takashimaya receives a variety of questions from clients about shopping
on its home page, and sends back e-mail answers within 48 hours from
receipt, recommending goods available at the store that fit the needs
of the client. This service is available to anyone registered as a member.
About 25 percent of the 5-10 questioners a day decide to purchase the
recommended goods. This "Secretary Service," already offered in the
United States by department store Nordstrom, was introduced for the
first time in department stores in Japan by Takashimaya.
Customer services are individualized so that a user can register on the
Net a name list for gift-sending and various anniversaries, and display
on the home page goods selected by the attributes of the client such
as gender and number of children.
Secretary Service tends to push up the operating cost, as it depends
on manual work for dealing with customers individually. However, Takashimaya
succeeded in cost reduction.
Specialist advisers check questions input by customers on the home page
every day and classify those questions into some categories of goods.
They ask sales clerks informed of the categories to recommend some items
on sale by e-mail through a local-area network system, and choose the
best items for each customer. Then, advisers reply to the customers
by e-mail, reporting selected goods, reason for choice, prices and other
information.
"The labor cost can be reduced because sales staff choose the best items
while they are not serving visitors, and retired sales clerks work as
advisers on a part-time basis. They will work from home in the future,"
Takashimaya said.
The Web site system was developed free by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Corp. (NTT) in cooperation with Takashimaya for joint development of
the Internet shopping system. Internet Information Server of Microsoft
Co., Ltd. was employed for the Web server software, Oracle of Oracle
Corp. Japan was selected as the database software to manage commodity
information and ObjectStore of Object Design Inc. of the United States
was picked as the object-oriented database to control customer information.
Takashimaya has been trying to build and expand its Internet shopping
system as one of its marketing strategies since 1996. Total investment
has already exceeded 250 million yen (US$1.7 million). It has about
5,000 members as of August, and it targeting 10,000 by the end of this
year.
(Nikkei Information Strategy)
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