Observation on a Saturday

To cut the long story short, I ended up choosing to go with "Mode Off", the clothes recycle shop because that best relates to my research topic and it is also an industry I probably have more knowledge about than the fishing one. 


So I went down on a Saturday afternoon from about 2 to 3 pm, and I did introduce myself to who I assume to be the manager, Takizawa-san. He was basically fine with me observing if I was going to just observe, and he could take questions about the store if they weren't busy, but I could tell he was strict about withholding information. He said no to photos and to answering certain questions, which I interpreted to be those which are sensitive to the store. Anyway, I did get away with asking and having him answer two questions this time, which are below:


1. Are all the clothes old? Do they all come from customers or do you also buy them from somewhere else?


Answer: The clothes are all secondhand, and all of them come from customers.


Comments: This is pretty cool, because it means that the shop is self-sustainable, with people selling what they don't already need and with other people buying these things that some don't want, and this store is at the centre of that buying and selling process. This possibly reduces waste, as many people buy, consume and throw out things every day. 


2. Are there any conditions in the buying process? Any preference in size, brand or type?  


Answer: They are essentially looking out for in his words, "young, casual fashion from sizes S to XL". This means no formal wear like suits, no 年配 items, no "king size", but they take in both branded and non-branded items.  


Comments: This probably translates to the fact that their target consumer is probably the average consumer who is looking for fashionable yet not-too-strange items for normal daily wear. This connects to my one-hour observation, more details of which will be written below.


Observations in the approximately one hour I was there this afternoon will be grouped into 3 categories:
a) The Buying Process
b) The Shop's Atmosphere (on the outside)
c) The Demographics of the Customers (during that duration)


a) The Buying Process


This is probably the most orderly recycle shop I have ever seen, definitely Japanese-style, and I had the luck to witness quite a few buyings (from the shop's point of view).


This is how it works: you have a bag of clothes or things to sell. You walk into the shop, go to the cashier on the inside of the shop on the first floor. The person-in-charge takes your bag, thanks you, gives you a number tag, and asks you to wait for your number to be called. In the mean time, you wait around for your number to be called by browsing the shop's items, and possibly getting more stuff yourself by the time that happens. 


On the shop's end, the employees open the bag, check each item carefully, separates them into neat piles by carefully folding them back. If there are too many items, he will use the wooden shelf-counter marked by the prices they are offering their customer, which kind of looks like this:

When the sorting and pricing are done, the employee will announce throughout the store that your number is ready to be served, together with an advertisement of what are today's special, or simply remind all customers of the uniqueness of this store, probably for the sake of announcing something else together with the fact that your number is ready. 

When you go back to the counter, the employee will show you the receipt, together with (if any) the items that they possibly cannot take because of a certain reason, like it is too old or torn, and they will politely ask if you decide to sell it to them at a much lower price anyway because of its condition. I'm not entirely sure how this works, because I only observed it, but it is interesting to take note and asking questions the next time round. The money and your copy of the receipt is given to you and this marks the end of the buying process.

b) The Shop's Atmosphere (on the outside)

I hadn't realized this the last time I was there, but the human traffic right outside the shop is very high. After standing outside the shop for a whole 20 minutes, I noticed that many customers go in to check out the shop while they were passing by. Although some looked like they specifically came to visit the shop, others looked like they just discovered it and wanted to see what's inside. The turnover of customers is quite high because many go in for a quick buy and are out within 5 to 10 minutes. At any one point, there were about 20 to 30 customers on the first floor, which is probably only 25 square meters of shop space excluding the cashier counters. 

The other interesting thing I had observed from just standing outside the shop was that many came with their families. One look behind me and I knew why, check out the map:

View Larger Map

There was a 24-hour MacDonald's right across the street from Mode Off (google maps have not been updates so it is supposed to be where "ハレーション 上野店　(halation)" is on this map), so it can be a case of while Mommy goes in to get her quick shopping fix, Daddy and kids go to Macs to get their snacks while waiting for Mommy to be done. In my 20 minutes outside, I spent about half the time standing next to one pram from this kind of case scenario. Obviously, this adds to the family-friendly sort of setup, although I have also seen entire families go into the shop: mother and daughter browse the first two levels while father browses the third level, so time spent at the recycle shop can be a family bonding experience.

c) The Demographics of the Customers (during that duration)

Contrary to popular belief, young women in their 20s came in groups, sometimes alone, as well as young men (possibly teenagers). It would be interesting to know why they would visit this recycle shop like any of their regular haunts for shopping, but I have yet to ask any customers, so this could be a potential question for customers. 

As mentioned earlier, the shopping process seems to be pretty fast, with customers picking the clothes that they like off the hangers, paying and leaving. Hardly anybody tries the clothes or looks and considers them for long periods of time. The lack of fitting rooms, I suppose, also facilitates quick buying since there is only one fitting room on the ground floor, and possibly not that many on top either since as much space as possible is allotted to squeeze in as many clothes as possible for sale. This seems to be a rather efficient shopping process, in fact very different from the shopping experiences in the malls in Japan, where things are taken slow - you can have meals while you sit around and mull over purchases or stay in your exclusive-looking fitting room with a full-length mirror and chair and decide if the usually expensive item is worth all that money. Therefore I'm wondering if the fact that it is secondhand and that it is cheap have something to do with the change in the shopping process. 

Okay, this is the end of my report for today's observation.