A new episode of TV Asahi's special program "Tamori Station," which is hosted by Tamori and delves into a variety of topics, will air on June 13th from 8:00 pm to 9:48 pm. This time, the program will focus on "depachika," the trump card of the department store industry, which has been reported to be performing poorly. The program will analyze the "evolution and strategy" of depachika, which creates various food trends and attracts people.
Tamori will be covering the basement floor of the Isetan Shinjuku store (Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo), which boasts one of the largest floor space and sales in Japan, and will get to the bottom of the secrets behind the display cases that stimulate purchasing desire, the sale of prepared foods by weight, packaging techniques, and other secrets of "hospitality."
Also noteworthy is the new customer attraction strategy of "paid tastings." In the basement floor of the Isetan Shinjuku department store, there is a tasting counter where customers can sample prosciutto for a fee. Tamori highly praises this new type of eat-in space, where customers can carefully check the flavor, saying, "It's so comfortable that it's worth coming just for this."
Department store basements are crowded with many famous stores and are in fierce competition every day, but what kind of business efforts are each store making? We also focus on the presentation technique called "Osamemori" that makes products look attractive.
The program also focuses on the history of department store basements, unraveling the story of the origins of department store basements through historical documents and drama reenactments. The first department store basement in Japan was the "permanent Takashimaya Market" that opened in the Takashimaya Nagahori store in Osaka in 1922.
The prototype of today's department store basements, which offer the flavors of famous restaurants, is said to be the "Tozai Meibutsu-gai" that opened in Matsuzakaya Nagoya in 1936. It was a groundbreaking sales floor at the time, bringing together famous food stores from Tokyo and Osaka. In the program, photos of the Tozai Meibutsu-gai from the time of its creation will be colorized using the latest generation AI technology, and recreated in the studio with a great sense of realism. Seeing the rows of famous stores with impressive storefronts in the basement of the department store, Tamori senses the extraordinary enthusiasm that the managers of the time put into the sales floor.
After finishing the recording, Tamori was impressed and said, "When I walk through the basement food courts, I never knew there were so many hidden strategies. Whether it's wrapping, serving, or communication, the basis of it all is the attention to detail that is unique to the Japanese. Overall, I think that the basement food courts are truly a uniquely Japanese food culture." He continued, "It feels like it's already in its final form, but I'm sure the basement food courts will continue to evolve. I'd like to keep an eye on it."
The cast members will be Yoshino Kimura, the editor-in-chief of the industry paper "Department Store Newspaper" Satoru Yamada, and store opening advisor Teruhiko Fukunaga. The assistant for the program will be announcer Rui Watanabe.
