- Thousand yen sales at department stores, where all goods are priced at \1,000, are getting popular.
- \100 neckties have become a huge hit at hundred yen stores. One leading hundred yen store orders 600,000 ties at a time (for \70 each), which are sold out within a month. Unconcerned about selling brand name merchandise, the store considers the key to success to be patterns and materials, and has forged tie-ups with five or six tie manufacturers in Japan.
- The wave of alliances among leading electrical machinery manufacturers continues. For example:
a. Toshiba and Canon have entered a tie-up to manufacture wall-mounted TVs.
b. Fujitsu and Siemens of Germany have forged an alliance to produce computers in Europe.
c. NEC and Hitachi have entered a partnership to produce DRAM chips.
- Companies in Japan are increasingly bypassing wholesalers.
- Washi (a special kind of Japanese paper) has started to be used as an environmentally friendly material for menswear. The company concerned is also interested in exporting the product.
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