As bookstores struggle to survive across the country, a Tokyo-based IT firm has decided to go against the stream by entering the sector.
For Freee, an IT firm that provides cloud-based applications to manage back-office tasks, opening Tomei Shoten (transparent bookstore) in Tokyo’s Taito Ward last week marked an opportunity to experiment with an unconventional business strategy of disclosing real-time sales while also learning more about running a small-scale business.
Due to the rise of e-books and online shopping, the number of bookstores in Japan has been falling for the past decade or so. There were 11,495 such outlets as of March, down 30% from 16,371 in the same month in 2013, according to the Japan Publishing Organization for Information Infrastructure Development.