DISTRIBUTION KEIRETSU AND RETAILER SERVICES

COLOR TV REPAIR SERVICE AND HOME ELECTRONICS RETAILERS IN JAPAN

Abstract

This paper provides a qualitative analysis of the retail service for home electronic apparatus, focusing on TV sets, which were once by far the most widely handled product. In the late 1950s, Japanese TV manufacturers encouraged independent small service shops to join their keiretsu retail groups to provide local repair and maintenance services for their products and promote the sale of their goods to neighborhood customers.
In order to support their retailers, manufacturers set up their own service station networks in the 1960s and invested a great deal in keeping their keiretsu retailers informed of new technologies. On the one hand, however, the advent of the transistor color TV in 1968 decreased the frequency of malfunctions and raised the need for equipment and technical knowledge once repairs were required. On the other hand, year by year, manufacturers produced new models that were increasingly maintenance-and adjustment-free.In the 1970s, many retailers tried to survive by door-to-door sales, but after the color TV market had matured by the mid-1970s, there were no longer any products suitable for door-to-door sales. With the severe shortage in the labor force, retailers encouraged their employees to set up their own shops. But by the late 1970s, with a matured market and the growing number of retailers, it became difficult to launch and maintain new stores at profit.
It would have been beneficial for the Japanese home electronics manufacturers to retain friendly ties with retailer groups in the era of rapid technical progress, but dealers had to deal with the problem of reallocation of labor forces outside the manufacturer companies.