Chapter 292: The Construction of a Channel System

In the afternoon, Asano Aiko and Satake Maki, who had gone to Japan Publishing Sales, returned to the publishing house and met up with Akiwara Yuto and Nishijima Sota.

However, the result was disappointing; regarding the 60,000 copies for the first edition, the department manager at the Japan Publishing Sales headquarters stated that, just as before, they were only willing to order 7,000 copies.

Together with the 4,000 copies for Tokyo Sales, the total came to 11,000 copies.

Facing the dejection of Asano and Satake, Akiwara Yuto comforted them.

"It’s fine, we can still help move stock through reading events; President Nishijima already has a good grasp on that."

Nishijima Sota was stunned for a moment, but he quickly understood the meaning behind his encouragement and took the initiative to say: "Yes, I am preparing to contact local partner bookstores in Tokyo and find a high-end restaurant to host a reading event."

After hearing these words, the expressions of Asano and Satake finally improved.

Akiwara Yuto waved his hand, beckoning everyone to walk into the third-floor conference room to prepare for a small meeting.

After everyone sat down, Asano Aiko finally regained her composure. She looked at Nishijima Sota and said: "President Nishijima, I would like to ask, in the first half of the year, Tokyo Sales and Japan Publishing Sales accounted for at least 2 million copies out of the 3 million copies ordered."

"So, we have significant mutual interests; can we use this reason to try and reach their vice presidents or even higher-level management?"

In Asano Aiko’s view, if the department managers below couldn't make the decision, then it would be better to go through the upper-level route; after all, the figure of 2 million copies involved a transaction amount of nearly 6 billion yen.

Even if split among each company, it was still about 3 billion yen, which could hardly be considered a small number.

After listening, Nishijima Sota shook his head. "Asano-san, do you know what the estimated sales volume of the Japanese publishing market was in the first half of the year?"

Seeing that Asano Aiko couldn't answer, he continued: "Although the economy is in a downturn, the sales volume of the publishing market in the first half of this year is still around 720 billion yen, and because of the industry monopoly, Tokyo Sales and Japan Publishing Sales account for two-thirds of the total transaction volume."

"So, even though our publishing house's sales in the first half of the year were quite good, the proportion of our performance in these two companies' business is only about 2%."

Hearing this, Asano Aiko felt deflated.

In the publishing market, mystery is just a small field; there are also manga, textbooks, traditional literature, biographies, reference books, magazines, and all sorts of other miscellaneous things.

Trying to make the other party value them based solely on the cooperation of mystery publications is undoubtedly a very difficult task.

"President Nishijima, I would like to ask, why did Tokyo Sales and Japan Publishing Sales reduce their orders?" Satake Maki asked in confusion.

She didn't quite understand; after all, the previous cooperation between both sides had been very pleasant, and this time it was too abrupt.

Nishijima Sota hesitated and glanced at Akiwara Yuto, not knowing whether he should speak, but Akiwara Yuto said directly: "It is because Keihan Publishing is targeting me."

He looked around at everyone and explained: "The main shareholders of Tokyo Sales and Japan Publishing Sales are the four companies: Kakeikan, Mandansha, Keihan Publishing, and Toyoeisha, and Keihan Publishing is the third and fourth largest shareholder of these two companies respectively."

Except for Nishijima Sota, who already understood, Asano Aiko and Satake Maki immediately realized what was happening.

Under the demands of major shareholders, book trading companies like Tokyo Sales can sacrifice some economic interests to execute unreasonable requests.

Moreover, even if they didn't cooperate with Akiwara Yuto's works, the market gap left behind might just be filled by Keihan Publishing.

But this is troublesome; what should be done to break the deadlock?

The two of them couldn't help but frown.

Akiwara Yuto clapped his hands, and after attracting everyone's attention, he stated the decision he had made yesterday.

"I have a plan: to establish our own bookstore chain brand."

After hearing this, Nishijima Sota and the others were stunned, doubting if they had heard correctly.

Tsutaya Books, or the original Anjiu Bookstore, although it had one affiliated bookstore, was essentially just for displaying samples to distributors and other bookstores, and secondly, it could serve as a warehouse.

And even if they established ten or twenty chain bookstores, it would be of no help to the current channel dilemma.

One must know that Tokyo Sales and Japan Publishing Sales easily cover tens of thousands of bookstores.

"Akiwara-sensei, the cost is too high, and in terms of time, it's too late!"

Nishijima Sota immediately objected, "What we need now is channels. So I personally suggest visiting some small distributors and strengthening visits to bookstores in various regions to move them with our sincerity."

Asano Aiko and Satake Maki didn't speak, but the expressions on their faces were very much in agreement with this point.

Akiwara Yuto was not angry at being refuted, but instead asked: "What if the cost of my chain bookstore plan is very low, and it can build our own sales channel to help sell books?"

"This?" Nishijima Sota fell into hesitation, and Asano and Satake also became somewhat puzzled.

Akiwara Yuto smiled and then continued to describe his idea.

This time, he intended to use the BOOKOFF bookstore model.

BOOKOFF is Japan's largest second-hand bookstore chain; from its opening in 1990 to 2005, it had 701 stores across Japan in just 15 years.

The reason for its rapid expansion was also because only 20% were directly operated stores, while the other 80% were franchises. With franchise fees, the cost of opening new stores naturally came down.

Besides that, its success also had a great historical context.

Because of the economic recession in the 90s, consumer purchasing power declined, so they preferred cheaper books. Even so, consumers also attached great importance to the external appearance of books.

Therefore, BOOKOFF's "second-hand refurbished books" successfully occupied the market and remained at the forefront despite the overall decline in the publishing industry.

Asano Aiko then asked: "Akiwara, but aren't you talking about second-hand books? We are publishing new books."

Akiwara Yuto replied: "We can issue high-priced hardcover editions in addition to the current paperback editions. These hardcovers can be 'aged' and sold in second-hand bookstores, with the price adjusted to be slightly lower than the paperback editions."

Asano Aiko was convinced and stopped talking, while Nishijima Sota felt it had deviated from the original intention and asked: "Akiwara-sensei, how does this model establish channels?"

Akiwara Yuto nodded and continued to describe it.

"For us, the most important things for book channels are two points: one is that other bookstores pay attention and place orders, and two is storage and logistics costs."

"If we establish one of our stores in the main urban areas across Japan, we can increase the storage proportion of books under the publishing house through the store's warehouse."

"In this way, if bookstores in other cities place orders with us, we can ship them directly from the store's warehouse."

He hadn't mentioned one point yet, which was to build their own online sales platform, allowing bookstore owners to place orders and ship directly on the website.

However, many bookstore owners in this era were middle-aged men and women, so he didn't expect them to use the internet and decided to prioritize telephone orders first.

Nishijima Sota began to ponder after listening.

The Japanese archipelago has a total of 47 first-level administrative divisions, divided into 1 metropolis, 1 circuit, 2 urban prefectures, and 43 prefectures.

If they could really set up points in all these administrative divisions, it might actually be possible to achieve the effect Akiwara Yuto described.

However, is it really feasible?

Although Akiwara Yuto spoke logically, he was still a bit skeptical in his heart...

Akiwara Yuto looked at his expression, guessed his inner doubts, and said: "How about this, President Nishijima, you help me make a statistical report on bookstores to evaluate it..."