Chapter 314: Capturing the Osaka Market

In all of Japan, there are three cities of great importance: Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto.

The status of these three cities within Japan has constantly shifted alongside the changes of history.

In the mid-7th century, following the Taika Reform, the Japanese government of the time built the Naniwa Nagara-Toyosaki Palace in Osaka, designating Osaka as Naniwa-kyo.

Therefore, Osaka was once the capital of Japan.

However, by 794, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Heian-kyo, and Naniwa-kyo completely lost its status as a political center.

For the following thousand years, Heian-kyo—that is, Kyoto—remained the capital of Japan.

But after 1868, with the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji Emperor issued an edict renaming Edo to Tokyo and visited Tokyo between October and December of that same year.

This allowed Tokyo to replace Kyoto’s status and become the capital in the true sense of the word.

However, after World War II, Japan reset its constitution and instead abolished the specific provisions regarding the capital.

This left Tokyo, the political and economic center of Japan, as the capital in practice but not in law.

Meanwhile, Osaka and Kyoto underwent different changes.

The former became Japan’s second-largest economic center, while the latter became Japan’s cultural center.

Therefore, for the commercial map of Tsutaya Books, the importance of the Osaka market is beyond doubt.

As Japan’s second-largest city, while the number of bookstores in Osaka does not compare to the 1,600 in Tokyo, it still well exceeds 1,000.

So, in order to open up local channels as quickly as possible, Xidao Zongtai entrusted the newly hired Jiutian Jianyi to immediately take an order form and head to the bookstores in the area.

Osaka City, Chuo Ward.

Wearing a thick overcoat, Jiutian Jianyi walked hurriedly to the entrance of a large bookstore with a sign reading "Dadai Bookstore."

This bookstore was his target for today.

During his time working in sales in Tokyo, he clearly understood the comparison of purchasing volumes between large bookstores.

For instance, for the same bestseller, a large bookstore covering over 1,000 square meters can often easily sell over a thousand copies within a week.

But if it is a bookstore covering only 30 square meters, it often only sells a few dozen copies.

Therefore, in his view, if he could persuade the owner of this Dadai Bookstore to establish a direct sales relationship with Tsutaya Books, it would be more effective than going to over 30 smaller bookstores.

He thought for a moment, then walked inside and, after asking a clerk, met the store manager named Dadai Zhengmei.

In fact, during his time working in publishing sales in Tokyo, he had already had quite a few professional interactions with her.

After the two exchanged brief pleasantries, Dadai Zhengmei asked politely, "Section Chief Jiutian, may I ask what brings you here today?"

She was a bit confused.

For distributors, bookstores are often clients, so people would visit periodically for client calls. But she vaguely remembered that this Mr. Jiutian was not supposed to be in charge of the Osaka region.

Jiutian Jianyi waved his hand with a smile, "Manager Dadai, just calling me 'Mr.' is fine; I have already resigned from Tokyo Publishing Sales."

Resigned?!

Hearing this news, Dadai Zhengmei became even more confused.

The two were mere acquaintances who had met a few times; if he had resigned from Tokyo Publishing Sales, why would he come to find her?

She thought for a moment and asked tentatively, "May I ask what your intention is?"

Jiutian Jianyi nodded, smiled, took a business card from his pocket, and handed it to Dadai Zhengmei, "I am now serving as the Marketing Department Manager at the company Tsutaya Books."

He was a manager, but he actually had fewer than 10 people under him, which was about the same as when he served as a section chief at Tokyo Publishing Sales.

However, with this title, it would be much more convenient for him to deal with others.

After stating his position, he said politely, "My company hopes to establish a direct sales business with your bookstore."

Direct sales? Dadai Zhengmei was stunned.

It was not that Dadai Bookstore did not have direct sales partnerships with publishers, but those publishers were generally located locally in Osaka, making communication quite convenient. But she vaguely remembered that the Tsutaya Books publisher he was with should be located in Tokyo.

With that time and energy, it would be better to just entrust it to the two sales agencies, Tokyo Publishing Sales and Japan Publishing Sales.

However, to be honest, she did not intend to agree to his request.

Japanese society is a society of human relationships; cooperation between enterprises often places more emphasis on these ties, and she still held quite a few doubts in her heart regarding the strength of Tsutaya Books.

One must know that the book ordering business involves finance, logistics, promotion, and so on, not to mention that the other party is far away in Tokyo, making communication even more troublesome.

But just as she was about to politely decline, Jiutian Jianyi took an order booklet from his briefcase, opened it, and placed it on the desk, "These are the books we are currently selling; please take a look."

Seeing this, Dadai Zhengmei felt it would be rude to directly refuse, so she had no choice but to lower her head and look through it.

She discovered that on this order booklet, besides the recently out-of-stock "Snow Country," there were also "Train," "The Devotion of Suspect X," "Memories of Murder," "Death of a Mystery Writer," and other bestsellers from this year.

However, what surprised her a little was that compared to the order booklets from the distributors, the wholesale prices of these books were on average 10 percent lower.

Seeing this price, Dadai Zhengmei began to hesitate.

10 percent might seem small, but as a large bookstore, Dadai Bookstore often orders many books at once.

Over time, it was not a figure that could be ignored.

Perhaps I should order a batch and see.

But then again, what form should the payment and book delivery take?

Seeing this, Jiutian Jianyi brought out his trump card.

He said with a smile, "If Dadai Bookstore has concerns, our company can waive the initial deposit and change to a monthly settlement method. Furthermore, the logistics costs will be borne entirely by our company."

Hearing these two favorable conditions, Dadai Zhengmei looked straight up and gazed at Jiutian Jianyi with a surprised expression.

According to the rules of the publishing industry, books that do not sell within a certain period can be returned to the publisher; therefore, the deposit method is also a form of protection for the publisher's interests to prevent the bookstore from overstocking.

But if the other party did not require a deposit and adopted monthly settlements, Dadai Bookstore could be said to be shifting all operational risks to Tsutaya Books, without having to bear any risk itself!

However, what she did not know was that with the gradual decline of the publishing industry, more and more publishers would adopt similar forms in the future.

And Tsutaya Books' approach was merely making this "involution" arrive one step earlier.

Jiutian Jianyi further persuaded, "Manager Dadai, our publishing house intends to build its own distribution system, so the supply from distributors will decrease in the future, but you should know how the market is for Mr. Akiwara Yuto's works."

Dadai Zhengmei was silent; she admitted that Jiutian Jianyi was right.

Looking at the market trends for the entire year of '93, Akiwara Yuto's mystery series ranked at the top for the entire bookstore.

Although it did not reach the sales volume of popular manga and romance novels, it still raised the average sales of books in the literary section by 20 percent.

If she did not stock them while other bookstores did, a batch of customers would undoubtedly be lost to other bookstores.

"Mr. Jiutian, I understand. Please start by providing 400 copies of 'Snow Country' and 100 copies each of Mr. Akiwara's other works."

Hearing this answer, Jiutian Jianyi revealed a satisfied smile.

As long as he could negotiate with a few more large bookstores, he could use their names to talk to medium-sized bookstores.

Under the ripple effect, other medium-sized bookstores would also place orders one after another to avoid being left behind by the large bookstores!

Therefore, the Osaka market has been all but conquered!