Shopping for Ideas

A huge blue-and-white tour bus full of Japanese men turned onto Melrose Avenue as their guide explained in Japanese that the boulevard offered an array of “omoshiroi” or interesting specialty shops.

First stop: The Fred Segal store, which is divided into sections to highlight different merchandise categories, such as clothing, gadgets, luggage and greeting cards. But as the group left the bus, cameras in hand, the guide said picture taking was not allowed in the store. That was a blow to the 35 men, who were no ordinary Japanese tourists merely interested in shopping.

The group, organized by the Japan Department Store Assn., was composed of merchandise representatives from Japan’s largest department stores, who have spent the last two weeks in the United States shopping for ideas--not goods--to take back to their stores.

They’ve gone from New York to Houston to Los Angeles to gather ideas on how U.S. chains such as Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and others present and buy their merchandise and lay out their stores.

In this area, in addition to Melrose Avenue, they visited Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the Beverly Center and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

While many bought gifts for their families, the representatives from such major Japanese department stores as Isetan, Takashimaya, Seibu and Mitsukoshi clearly were not in the market for U.S. products that could be sold through their stores to Japanese consumers.

They pointed out the many Japanese goods from stockings to pens offered at the trendy Fred Segal store. But they acknowledged that, while stores in Japan offer U.S. food items, they don’t stock much fashion merchandise from this country.

Masayoshi Ikemoto, president of the Japan-based Marketing Innovation International consulting firm, who led the tour, explained that Japanese chains carry limited supplies of U.S. fashion apparel for three reasons:

Most U.S. manufacturers do not “down-size” their garments for Japanese consumers, who on average are smaller than Americans. Japanese consumers generally perceive U.S. apparel as being of inferior quality and workmanship. And higher U.S. apparel manufacturing costs mean the garments are expensive in Japan.

Ikemoto said his own observation is that U.S. manufacturers don’t appear “to have big intentions to export. Their biggest concern is the domestic market.”

However, some U.S. brands such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren are sold in Japan, typically under licensing arrangements that call for the garments to be adapted to Japanese sizes and made in Japan. Isetan, for example, has a licensing agreement with Calvin Klein.

Other major licensing agreements involve entire retail concepts, according to Ikemoto. He said Ito Yokado, a Japanese mass merchandiser comparable in size to Sears, Roebuck & Co., has a license agreement with Southland Corp. to operate 7-Eleven stores in Japan. He said Ito also will open the first Oshman’s Sporting Goods store this summer in Japan through a similar agreement. Brooks Bros. has three stores in Japan under a joint venture with Daido Textile Co.