No 150


Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.150.We are still in 'tsuyu'(raniy season), and it is raining today. Howis the weather in you place!
These days, I often think about 'honesty'. In Japan, there is an oldadage, which says ' Byoubu to Shounin sugu deha tatanu'.Byoubu is the Japanese folding screen, and as you know it is stood withbending at the joints. The adage says,' Byoubu and merchant never stand with unbend.' So the adage says, merchant never attain greatness withsimple honesty.
Two weeks ago, we started 'Kimono Kaitori' with advertising with YahooJapan. 'Kaitori' means 'Purchase', so we tried to purchase used(andantique ) kimono from ordinary people. We made the web page, whichinforms our kimono-purchase-systhm, and advertised the page by YahooSearch Marketing. Here in Japan, Yohoo Japan is the most popular searchengine site. When Japanese people search the word ' kimono + kaitori',several advertised sites are displayed on the not-advertised pages, andwe tried to display our page the first. A book says if the page is advertised in the first rank of Yohoo Japan,approx a tenth of the word searchers will click(or visit) the promotionsite, and approx 1% of the visitors will buy the service on the page. Ifit is real, this will happen - All over Japan, some people want to sell their kimono.- Many of them will look for the kimono dealers who will purchase theirkimono, in the internet. - Most of them will go Yahoo Japan, and put the words 'kimono + kaitori'and click search button.- Our site is displayed the first line with other sites. - 10% of them will click the link and visit our page.- A person among 100 visitors will call us, and ask to purchase herkimono.
We wanted to pay as much as we could to the kimono. If we are honest andalways want to offer best service, we must sell our kimono at lowestprice as we can to our customers, and at a time we must pay the highestprice as we can do for these new customers(who want to sell kimono). Ofcourse, we must set the levels carefully at continuable one.
We set the fee as below -- If customers send their kimono to us, we will keep the kimonos for thetime being. - Sell at the kimonos auction, and after the sold price are fixed, wewill pay the 85% of the sales amount. 15% will leave for our profit.We thought this fee is very reasonable. Ordinarily kimono kaitoridealers offer way lower price than expected auction sales amount. It is becausethere are risks ( they may not sell at the expected prices) and also fortheir profits.- We will pay kimonos sending fee and money transfer fee. From our experiences, we thought there is not other way to pay thehighest prices.
However, the problem is the price of advertisement. You may know, the rank is determined by the bid of the advertisers. Morepopular the words become, the bid prices become higher. When we startedto bid, the bid price to get the first rank was approx 300 yen. It meansif someone clicks and visit our site, we must pay 300 Yen(approx 2.5USD)for each their one click.From the calculating formula above, to get one customers, 100 clicks areneeded, which cost 300Yen x 100 = 30000 Yen ( approx 260USD ).
We could estimate that if kimono packages from customers sells average atmore than 200,000 Yen(1700USD), we had to be able to get some profit.We thought it might be very difficult price, because the most kimonoscome from ordinary people are not so valuable. However, there are some'kaitori' dealers who is advertising in the internet, and we heard thatthey have purchased huge kimonos for these 2 years. We thought the average prices might be higher than we expected, if notso other kaitori dealers can not advertise as they do.Anyway we determined to begin to know the 'kaitori' market. It was twoweeks ago.
As a result, the book's description is right. A customers called us during 100 clicks. Five customers sent their kimono to us. Average sales amount percustomer is approx 30,000 yen(260USD). The income and expenditure of acustomer is + 4,500yen ( 15% of 30,000 yen) -30,000yen ( 100 click fee) - 3,000yen ( shipping cost we paid) - 310yen ( bank transfer fee)Grand total is -28,810 yen!
Finally we quit this 'kimono kaitori' advertisement. Customer samples maybe too little, but we can not imagine the average sales go up to 200,000yen. If we want to make profit, we have to pay the least amount as we can.If the amount of the package seems to have 35,000 yen, we had to say thekimonos are almost values and we can pay nothing. To get profitthrough this method, we must say lies everyday and make the customers sad.We come to know that 'kimono kaitori with advertising with Yahoo' is notgood system for customers ( advertising cost is too heavy) and it is notour way.
Today I checked, and found the price of 'kimono Kaitori -first rank'went up to 380 Yen. They must be able to get good profit by theseadvertisements, and compete the first rank position. As the old adageteach us, they must stand with bending somewhere. And recently a seniorantique dealers said to me that ' bad antique dealer grow more thanhonest dealer.'
However, I am never comfortable to say valueless for 300USD value items. I believe merchants can stand only their honesty and service mind. Ifnot so, we would quit our business, and go into the mountains or southernislands.
Thank you for reading to the end! Today we will list kimono, haori,antique items and bolt.We hope you enjoy checking our new arrivals. domo arigato gozaimasu.
Ichiro & Yuka WadaKimono Flea Market "ICHIROYA"http://www.ichiroya.com
e-mail: info@ichiroya.comaddress: Asia-shoji Bldg.301 1841-1 Nishi 1 chome Wakamatsu cho Tondabayashi city Osaka 584-0025 JAPANTEL&FAX ****( international number ) - 81-721-23-5446