No77

Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.77. Most companies stated from Jan 5th and it seems the cities are getting back to normal.We can see trains and busses are filled with people going to work and more cars are around. I attended an auction few days ago in Niigata, which was the first auction in this year. I got some valuable kimono, and especially we are pleased to get some unique vintage child kimono and cotton rags. We will list cotton rags today, which are from Fukushima prefecture in Tohoku.(For your information, here is a map (Fukushma is #7, Niigata is #is #17 and Osaka is #29 next to Kyoto#25)http://gojapan.about.com/cs/japanmaps/l/blprefecturemap.htm: My friend kimono dealer got them from a farmer's stock house, and she sold them at Niigata auction. They are made of cotton, and many parts are repaired with other fabrics. And they are added sashiko stitches all over it. Cotton fabrics are very old, and sashiko stitches seems to be added in mid Showa period(Showa:1926-1989). Some stitches are also worn, and we can know they are repaired long time ago. She lives and has two kimono shops in Fukushima, and she says almost every houses around her had such rags, and they used them as the rag for kotatsu. We think they have similar charm to ranru, but has another different charm. We are very happy if you could check them.
Today I would like to write about antique business. Some antique dealers and I am wondering most antique sellers, regard their work as a kind of GAMBLE. They say--At ordinary transactions I cannot gain large profit, but once or twice a year I gain nearly a million yen at one transaction. For that type of transaction, I continue to work as a antique dealer.--You must be able to sell higher, if you sell this item at the kimono auction.
For me, what they say is same as gamble. Of course it must be exciting experience to get a million profit in a blink of an eye. But if the pleasure of our work is only from that kind of transaction, we must buy and sell common items without any pleasures all the time. I can't imagine I must endure 364 days a year with frustrations. When I say to them that your working style is like buying lottery, they reply they must have special eyes to make such a huge gain. So it is completely different from gamble! I understand what they say, but I don't like that way.Most of them always seem to think 'Who will pay the highest for this item?". And they offer their item to the auction which the potential highest paying customer will attend. In addition before the auction they confirm there will attend some competitors to him(her). At that situation the potential customer must pay high as much as he can to win the competitors. So the selling price will become as highest as possible. But always I am wondering -- Why won't they do the best for their customers?Why will they insist to get large profit at a transaction?Why won't they do as the customers become to like them?Why will they like better 'large profit but low-frequent transaction than ' profit long and frequent moderate transaction?
If buyers feel they are paying too much, they will become to dislike the sellers, and will quit buying from them except the case they have very very rare items the buyers want. But anyway that cases are rare, and their ordinary business will not be fruitful. We always want to do our best service to our customers. If we can sell our items at lower prices, we want to sell to our customers lower than other sellers. It is because we sell our items mainly at our site with fixed price. Some of our popular items may be able to be sold at higher prices at ebay auction, but if we do so, some customers must pay more than we expect. There is a difficulty to collect charming items, if we always buy only at low prices. So we think we must sell and buy at moderate prices always to continue our service. And if we and our all staffs are efficient enough, and eager to make our service better, we believe we can continue to serve you.
Our best pleasure is offering best service. Of course we need profit, but we become happiest when some customers or kimono dealers praised our service and site.We are very sorry if this story is boring to you. But I wanted to write or say this theme someday.
Todays listing will be 6-7 hours later from now. We are very happy if you could check them. We will list some haori, antique kappa, cotton and silk bolts.Thank you for reading to the end! Have a nice winter Sunday!
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