Stabilizing Sales by Increasing "Handling Items" as Much as Possible

Thank you as always! This is Kaiun-san.
Looking forward to working with you again today! 😊

In today's world, the number of specialty stores is at an unprecedented low. Isn't it the same in your town?

Things like, "Oh, the greengrocer that used to be here has gone out of business..."
The fishmonger near Kaiun-san's house has finally disappeared too. It feels a bit lonely, but this is reality.

So, where are consumers doing their shopping?

Needless to say, they are shopping at supermarkets and convenience stores. After all, they have everything from fish to meat to vegetables.

Even 100-yen shops sell clothes and underwear, so you can get by just by going there. It is also the flow of the times that hardware stores, yarn shops, and locksmiths have been replaced by home centers.

That said, large stores have started stocking products that were not sold before, so it is convenient, to say the least.

It means you can buy anything if you go there.

The same can be said for the internet. I think Amazon is amazing. When you search, most things hit. The same goes for Rakuten.

With that in mind, how is your business doing?

If you are a specialty store and you are making a profit, that is wonderful. However, if that is not the case, I think you should change your way of thinking and change your actions as well.

How do you do it?

As I gave examples earlier, like supermarkets and Amazon, you should transform your company from a specialty store into something like a shopping street or a shopping mall that handles a variety of things.Increase the number of items handled.

However, this does not mean increasing inventory. It means increasing the items you handle.

Just as various shops are gathered in a shopping street, you should steadily increase the things your company can handle. You want to reach the point where you can say, "You can get anything if you come to us."

If you think about the customer, you could say it is natural in a sense. Even in restaurants, there are secret menus, right? There are local Chinese restaurants that serve sashimi set meals for regular customers.

That is nothing more than an expression of wanting to meet the customer's needs. It is because the local Chinese restaurant's menu alone cannot fully meet the customer's needs.

"No, no, we are a Chinese restaurant, so if you want to eat sashimi, go elsewhere" might be the shop's commitment, but don't you think the answer lies in the fact that restaurants offering a fusion of Japanese, Western, and Chinese cuisine last a long time?

The same can be said for local barbershops.
Instead of running a barbershop and lamenting, "Customers aren't coming!", you need to first think about things to sell that are related to your business other than haircuts.

For example, sell shampoo or conditioner recommended by professionals.
Sell hair growth agents that work on the scalp.
Sell wigs or hairpieces.
Open a class on how to use hair clippers.
Open a thinning hair massage class. Selling DVDs specifically for that, etc., makes goods for thinning hair worries easy to sell.

Depending on how you do it, I think it can be more profitable than the cost of a haircut.

Furthermore, even if you don't focus exclusively on barbering, if you have a certain number of regular customers, you can sell completely unrelated goods or services.

If you have an acquaintance who works in event-related fields, you can post event posters in your shop, place brochures, and sell tickets. If they sell, you receive a commission of a few percent.

If you have an acquaintance who is a termite exterminator, you can place termite extermination brochures in your shop, which will lead to business.

In a barbershop, it is standard for customers to sit and wait for their turn, so if you place catchy items in visible and prominent places, the chances of them being seen during the wait time will increase.

You don't need to do everything yourself; you can just leave it to referrals or outsourcing. In that sense, the more acquaintances you have among contractors and craftsmen, the more work you can secure.

Before I cause any misunderstanding, I want to say that this is not about diversifying your business or creating new departments. That is impossible for a sole proprietorship.

Beyond the work you are currently doing, if you increase the windows for goods or services you can provide to customers, it is expected that your sales will increase accordingly.

As I wrote earlier, you can accept work requests for things completely outside your field. You can just have someone who is capable do it. Also, the contractors who receive the referrals will be happy. It's a win-win.

From now on, the concept of "specialty" will decrease more and more. Only those with tradition will continue.

Even pharmacies have now changed their names to drugstores, and some places sell not only medicine but also cosmetic products, supplements, daily necessities, soft drinks, groceries, alcohol, tobacco, and even clothing.

Why are they increasing the number of items so much?

This is the result of responding to customer requests. Having them buy other things they want while they are there to buy medicine. It is exactly the Amazon method.

If you respond to various things for your customers, how will they act? They will surely stop asking anyone but you for things.

I call this "In-house WW-ization," and I recommend building this.

WW stands for Wide Web. In other words, it means spreading out widely like a spider's web. In turn, it is a plan to increase the flow of money by broadening the scope of your company's business.

Yes, WWW (World Wide Web) is an internet address, isn't it?

I, Kaiun-san, practice this myself, so there is no mistake.

Comparing when I started the business to now, the goods and services I can provide to customers have increased significantly.

Do you know the comic manga called "Area 88"? It is a story about a Japanese protagonist who gets caught up in an incident, is deceived, is assigned to a foreign legion in a Middle Eastern country (fictional), and because he was a former civilian pilot, he battles enemy planes while flying fighter jets.

An old man named McCoy appears in this work, and he is a comical old man with incredible business acumen who will procure anything from a handkerchief to the latest fighter jet as long as you pay him.

At the Area 88 base, they are an indispensable presence. This jack-of-all-trades is highly valued by the soldiers at the base.

Furthermore, there is an old arms dealer who rarely appears in the well-known manga 'Golgo 13'. He always manages to meet Golgo's unreasonable demands (laughs). It depicts him procuring not only modified guns but also fighter jets. Moreover, these are old fighter planes like those used in the last great war. (These are just fiction, though...)

These 'fixers' are highly valued.

Recently, Kaiun-san has also added 'drain pipe cleaning' to his services.
I cannot do it myself, but I have gotten to know a professional drain pipe cleaner, so I can outsource the work from now on.
There is so much work, especially regarding anything related to housing.

In this way, I will gradually increase the number of craftsmen and contractors, while also increasing the things I can do myself. Just as tree roots branch out and multiply, I will increase the services my company handles.

If you do that, even if the tree becomes a large tree, it will be a sturdy tree that won't budge because its roots are firmly and deeply planted.

In the future, I would like to get to know contractors who handle gift items and health foods (laughs).
Naruhiko Kaiun

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