City-based specialty stores that distribute information on regional areas are closing due to the effects of the coronaviruses, high rents and popularity of internet retailing.
Many of the antenna shops in Japanese are based in the Tokyo metropolitan area and are usually operated by municipalities across the nation to spread information about their region's specialties and tourist spots. These stores are suffering from a decline in footfall, forcing municipalities to review their promotional strategies.
Gunma Prefecture opened its Gunmachan-chi antenna shop in Toyko's Ginza district in 2008. The store attracted more than 580,000 visitors at its peak in fiscal 2013. But by fiscal 2021 visitor numbers had plummeted to around 140,000, leading to a decline in shop sales and its eventual closing in December last year. Its annual rent in the high-end shopping district was around 70 million, compounding the shops difficulties.
Gunma Gov. said the antenna store concept may have reached a turning point. We will use every possible means, including online strategies and social media, to convey the charms of our prefecture. Sales at the Okano Machi Biei outlet in the Yurakucho district decreased due to the Pandemic, making it difficult for the Hokkaido town of Biei to continue operating the store - it stopped trading in January of last year.
According to the Japan Center for Regional Development, antenna stores appeared first in the mid- 1990s and many are located in central Tokyo selling goods, promoting tourism and giving advice to those who wish to move to the area in question. The number of independently operated antenna shops in Tokyo decreased from 62 in 2020 -- 2021 to 59 in 2022.
The number of store logging sales of 100 million or more increased from 29 in 2020 to 30 in 2022, but this figure is still below that of the pre-pandemic era.
It is hard for a municipality to survive on product sales alone unless it has a strong brand, said Takato Takemura, the center's deputy councillor. Stores need to allow customers to get a taste of the region first-hand, such as by interacting with locals from the area. Some stores are changing their business approach. On January 12, a Hyogo-based food company and sushi roll maker opened a store in Ginza to sell sushi rolls that are popular in Hyogo. Pamphlets promoting prefecture tourism are placed next to the store's cash register, and a promotional video is displayed on a screen. The store is set to be certified as a Hyogo public-private partnership antenna shop. Following the closure of its antenna shop outlet in Yurakucho last March, the prefecture reviewed its promotional strategies to be carried out in the Tokyo metropolitan area. After the review's completion, Hyogo concluded agreements with a number of private stores to sell Hyogo products and promote the prefecture within their shops. The cooperative outlets are introduced on the Hyogo prefectural website.
The number of stores promoting the prefecture will increase and we won't have to incur the costs associated with running a shop, said Hyogo Gov. Niigata Prefecture plans to close its N Espace antenna shop in Tokyo's Omotesando district by the end of the year due to the aging of the building. The prefectural government held a meeting of experts to discuss whether or not to maintain a promotion center in the Tokyo metropolitan area and concluded that it was still necessary to have a base where people can meet and interact. The experts opined that the era of conventional antenna shops selling local products had come to an end and suggested opening a new Toko-based outlet to lure people to Niigata Prefecture while shifting its product sales online. The prefecture has begun searching for a location for the new base.