Net malls giving small niche retailers way to stay alive

SHIRAKAWA, Fukushima Pref. (Kyodo) Many shops in Shirakawa, Fukushima Prefecture, have been forced out of business by large stores and malls on the outskirts of the city.

But one shop is fighting back by using the Internet mall Rakuten Market.

The Tuscany Wine House on the Rakuten portal sells Italian wines and food and was launched in 2001 by Ippei Yoshida, president of Sake Messe Co., a liquor shop in central Shirakawa.

Sake Messe's predecessor had been in business more than 100 years, and the wooden building was remodeled last May.

The shelves are stacked with bottles of Italian wine, but there are hardly any customers.

Most sales are done through computers in an office behind the shop, where Yoshida, his wife and 10 employees work in shifts to take orders coming from all over the country.

At first, monthly sales were less than 1 million yen, but specializing in Italian wine and food has paid off and the store now has many regular customers, including in Tokyo and Osaka. Monthly sales are more than 50 million yen.

Yoshida and his wife, Akiko, who manages the site shop, often visit Italy to get firsthand information from producers and find new products for their Web shop.

"If you do something different from the large stores, you can be sure of success, even if you are in a rural area," Yoshida said.

Meanwhile, Fukuhaku Printing Co. in the city of Saga opened the Internet shopping mall Saga Fan in June to sell special products from Saga Prefecture, including Saga beef and Ariake nori.

Exhibited on the site are the products of 17 enterprises and organizations.

"As far as Saga is concerned, we can handle anything," said Hideyuki Kawanami, manager of the site, which is trying to be the Saga version of the Rakuten Market.

The monthly sales of the 17 enterprises and organizations in December came to only 1.5 million yen, but even that was seven times larger than at the start.