Company Motto & The Business behind the Business

The Brochure


I picked up this brochure from the store some time back but hadn't had the chance to blog about it until now. The moment I laid eyes on the website, it hit me why the name was kind of familiar even though it wasn't. This is the same company that produced "Book Off"!


Anyway, this is what the brochure looks like (pardon the bad photography skills and bad lighting on the tatami of my room) in the front:

and at the back:

Before I discuss the website, I'd like to talk a bit about the brochure that I picked up. On the front, it shows pictures of relatively young consumers and shop helpers who are displaying the items for sale. This, I would argue, creates an image of a store that is hip and fashionable - not at all like one resembling a recycle shop, because very often, the ones you see here are usually old and the clothes look rather old as well. But in the case of Mode Off, the store looks awfully like a normal store selling new clothing instead of old ones. This I think is reinforced by the three small photos on the right, which seem to demonstrate an image of cleanliness and orderliness within the store, although the actual store in Ueno looks messier inside as compared to these photos. Below the photos are the company's logos, followed by examples of what the store offers for sale like outers, tops, bottoms etc, and then there are a few maps of a few stores in Tokyo. Interestingly, nothing except the company logos reveals that the goods for sale are secondhand. The image of the store presented in this brochure (at least on this side) seems to shy away from the stereotypical images of recycle shops in Tokyo, which is probably part of their marketing strategy.


At the back of the brochure is all about the "please sell to us" part. Unlike the front, which attracts customers to patronize their store and buy from them, the back is drawing customers to sell their items to them. And in order to do this, they illustrate the steps taken to sell the items, emphasizing how easy and (again) orderly it is to get rid of one's old wear. To make this deal seem even more attractive, there is a Q&A for customers who are interested but are apprehensive about certain issues, coupled with a list of some brands the store is targeting. At the very bottom, the name of the company and website is printed, so I finally know the business behind this business! Anyway, again there is this sense of professionalism in the buying process depicted at the back of the brochure, because that is what they think will appeal to customers. If customers think that this deal of selling clothes is fuss free, enterprising and, very importantly, saves the environment, they might be more than willing to swing by this store. 


I must say that I am now more impressed by how they have revamped the entire idea of the recycle shop than I was initially about the concept of the store as a recycling shop. If they've managed to present this hip and cool image of recycling and have gotten customers to buy it, there could be hope for other companies to think harder about the aspect of recycling in their businesses.


The Website


This is the URL of the company's website: http://www.hardoff.co.jp and it's also the main website for all the concept stores under the company, Hard Off, such as Mode Off, Book Off, Garage Off, Hobby Off and Off House.


Here's a snapshot of the website:

As you can tell, there is a very large support for "eco" from just one glance of their page, and there are (at the bottom left corner) a startling total of 643 stores for all their chains and only 16 of them belong to Mode Off, so I would say the latter is a relatively new concept that was developed in recent years. In fact, I think Mode Off might be the company's latest addition to their chain of recycle shops because the company only started in 2000, so it is quite shocking if you think of how much they have expanded in the last 11 years. Anyway, I want to draw your attention to the company motto here:

The motto "Reuse Nippon" has four things on the list, next to a very big recycle and reuse logo, in order of priority:

1. For the good of society
2. For the good of our customers
3. For the good of our employees
4. For the good of our company

As you can see, there is emphasis on the environment since the point on society tops the list, and below the motto, the tagline reads "in the era of ecology, our company wishes to be of help by communicating the concept of 'reuse'." I suppose this tells it all - Hard Off is a company that is riding on the "eco boom" that has been going on since the 1990s, as discussed in the previous post, by re-presenting the image of recycling in a way that is cool and accessible to customers. I feel this is really interesting because if the attitude towards consumerism can be not just about buying but also about selling, then recycling can be manageable even from the point of view of the average person. People are usually more reluctant to consider the environment if there is a lack of information about it, lack of awareness, lack of convenience to do it, but most importantly of all, lack of motivation which can be propelled by one's environment and the people also active about it. 

A check on the Mode Off section of the website shows this:

Look again at how the recycling point is almost missing from this page! It's more about pandering to the customer's desires, and yet, the items are still secondhand. If the company has a fashionable concept to sell their goods, I think this is it: customers can buy any amount of items and not feel so guilty about harming the environment. However, the cynical voice comes in, and this echoes Skov's point which I mentioned at the end of the last post, and I wonder if it is all a ploy to get customers to buy their stuff? Then again, as Skov also pointed out, who cares as long as they get people to recycle, because doing something for the environment is better than nothing, and clothes and other items covering the body is not something we can do without in our daily lives, so as minimally as we can, we can reduce the harm we bring about to the environment.  

To end off, now that we know there are 16 stores of Mode Off in total in the entire country, there are some questions that I want to keep in mind to ask the manager on my next visit:

1. Do the stores do stock exchange between stores to keep the flow of goods going, or is each store fully self-sustainable in this aspect?
2. What happens to off-season items? Do they store the stock somewhere while the current season's stock gets displayed in the store?