A Historical Study of the Internationalization of Japanese Retailers : Rethinking of the Cross Border Mechanism and the historical Evaluation

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The purpose of this research is threefold : (1) to provide a broad view of the internationalization of Japanese retailers over the past 100 years, (2) to elucidate the cross-border mechanism of retailers on the basis of this information, and (3) to derive some historical implications of the findings for Japanese firms that wish to enter emerging markets.The internationalization of Japanese retailers began in 1906, when Mitsukoshi opened a small store in Keijou(Seoul Korea).Ever since, 22 department store outlets have opened across Asia. In 1958, Takashimaya opened a store in New York, marking the beginning of retail internationalization after World War II. By the end of 2010, 143 department store outlets and 429 supermarket outlets had opened overseas. However, 60% of the department stores and 74% of the supermarkets have already closed, and there are very few success cases.A review of the past 100 years gives a fair idea of the factors that influence the success or failure of retail internationalization, including the biggest one is the outlet property management (location and rent). Therefore, we need to build a new retail internationalization model that incorporates this factor.The recent years have witnessed many Japanese consumer manufactures entering emerging markets by developing large-scale specialty store chains. The findings of our research imply that Japanese manufacturers must consider the outlet property management factor in order to succeed in emerging markets.