Operations
As stores are larger it is easier for shoppers to find what they are looking for. Browsing is encouraged, shown with a typical scene of high-school students who read through entire series of manga standing quietly in the aisles. Another innovation cited for its success is the practice of shaving the edges off the pages of books using a special machine in order to make them appear newer. By offering a wide selection of books that appear like new at reduced prices, Book Off has aggressively targeted conventional bookstore chains, which since 1953 have been unable to discount new and near-new books and other media due to government regulations which enable a publisher's cartel.
Book Off is frequently cited as a rare example of a corporation that was able to grow during the so-called "lost decade" of economic stagnation that followed the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble, through its use of innovative business strategies that are covered in the Japanese business press. It expanded from merely used books to used second-hand merchandise through its Hard Off stores and to the video rental market through Tsutaya.
Read more about this topic: Book Off
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)