TOKYO -- Retailer Isetan Mitsukoshi is upending the traditional Japanese business model for department stores, and the effort is beginning to bear fruit.
The Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo's Ginza district is crowded with customers. Typically department stores must be a good judge of finished products, determining which ones are likely to sell and making sure to stock plenty of them. But this business model has reached its limits, according to an analyst at a foreign-affiliated brokerage. Isetan Mitsukoshi has decided the way to increase profits is to move into merchandise planning and to bear the risk of excessive inventories itself.
