Western Japan's biggest department store to battle for potential market (3)

But this city tradition changed last year after West Japan Railway Company (JR West) opened a modern commercial facility in its renovated Osaka Station City complex. It includes a shopping mall featuring nearly 200 fashion brands and other retailers, and on the other side of the station is JR Osaka Mitsukoshi Isetan Department Store, the fourth department store operating in Umeda. All of this is adjacent to the station's ticket gates.

The opening, therefore, pressured the area's conventional retailers to drastically change their business strategies. According to local media, Daimaru's Umeda branch on the station's south side, for example, had to widen its sales area -- before JR West's complex opened -- by 60 percent to 64,000 square meters, thus increasing the number of stores for clothes, with a particular focus on younger shoppers.

Local media reported that the four department stores now have a total sales space reaching some 250,000 square meters, about 50 percent larger than that prior to Osaka Station City's opening.

We recommend:
A Decade of Fastest Development	Eastern Boom Lightens Western Gloom	Chinese firms 'potential Trojan horses'? slows
AVIC unveils new aircraft engines	Oct. data released, inflation slows	13th Int'l Automobile Industry Exhibition
China Int'l Industry Fair opens in Shanghai	Caofeidian coal wharf put into use	Galaxy Soho building in Beijing