I am sure Japanese are so used to the rampant handing out of tissue packages wherever they go that it might not occur to them as something bizarre – but it is to foreigners. I may not have gone to many countries, so maybe it’s just me, but tissue marketing is certainly not at all common back in Singapore. Rather, tissues are usually sold by homeless people for S$0.20/packet (about ¥15) around busy areas.

So who are the target consumers for this tissue advertising? From the pictures on the packets, you can see cafes, hand phones, educational courses, and so on being advertised – of course entirely for Japanese. However, after speaking to some local friends, they either think the tissues are boring (see lower right-hand corner of the picture), troublesome or are just plain marketing gimmicks, and would seldom take the tissues from the distributors. To us foreign students, we would gladly take them because tissues are something you might have to use everyday in different circumstances. Still, the advertisements are in Japanese, and if it does reach out to the foreigners instead, I am not sure if all of us would bother to read – or even be able to read – what is written there, especially if the contents are text-loaded. Perhaps it would be better to just put pictures on the packets (like in the lower left-hand corner of the attached picture), or just the company’s name (see eyecity) for easy reading.

In addition, have also noticed odd sizes of the tissue packets (the large squarish ones), and how it is sometimes distributed together with another leaflet or poster (since we can’t just take the tissue, we are forced to take both). Dustbins are not readily available everywhere, so I can understand why it would be a pain to take the leaflet/magazine and having to hold on to it till we reach home, and wait for a particular day to send the trash out. In Singapore, Singaporeans are happy to take the leaflets from the distributors, because we can always trash it in a bin just within 5 metres of the distributor. Maybe that is why tissues aren’t really needed to make people take the advertisement papers. And why selling tissues would remain an ideal income source for certain people.

As more people shift their book purchases to the web, however, Junkudo is doing two things. First, it is itself increasing its online sales, and second, adding small spaces to sit within its stores. The large volume of technical books on sale, Junkudo argues, means that people need more time to study the books before buying, so they provide a small number often no more than 3-4 chairs on each floor, and always hard, wooden chairs, although, just occasionally, they do come with a table. At the main store in central Kobe, the windows overlook the central shopping street and have a wide window ledge that customers also use to sit on and read the books.

At other Japanese stores, reading the books before buying is usually verbotten – and some stores are more than happy to ask people to leave it they seem to be standing still for too long! One popular children’s TV show even parodies an imaginary book-store sign language that shop assistants use to track down and expel illicit readers.

Of course, some Western chains such as Borders and Barnes and Noble in the USA and Waterstones in the UK have long understood that the longer people stay in their stores, the more likely they are to buy something. Many stores not only provide seats, even to the extent of pretty comfy sofas, but also attract in-store coffee shops, all designed to help customers to stay.

Not so in Japan. Junkudo’s main method of keeping customers in their stores would appear to be the archaic looking racks of books, aligned in strict grids just like library book stacks that make navigating within the store – and finding your way out – that much more difficult.

The chain’s results, however, speak for themselves. Despite being someway behind the bigger players such as Kinokuniya and Maruzen, and coming up against new competition from online sellers, Junkudo is holding its own and actually growing. The company says that providing seating in its stores is a key factor to this success – there may not be much of it and it might not be very comfortable, but in the Japanese bookstore market, at least its fairly unique.

The first step will involve a study group made up of the largest retailers, Aeon, Seven & I, and Wal-Mart Seiyu, Uny, as well as the Japan Consumer Co-operative Union, a body which has a long history of solving shopping issues such as reducing packaging. The working group will spell out how the labels are designed an the content they should include, as well as which third-party organisations will be used to verify the figures. The system will be tested in the working group’s stores and the government wants to move to full implementation by 2010. It’s likely that the labels won’t be compulsory, but it is equally hoped that opting out would be embarrassing for manufacturers.

Japan, while not obviously the most environmentally concerned country when looking around the rather over concreted ‘natural’ areas and when considering things such as excessive packaging on many products, is fast becoming a country where consumers and companies alike are genuinely making efforts to help prevent damage to the environment. Ex-Prime Minister Koizumi’s campaigns of Cool Biz and then Warm Biz, aimed at making people dress according to the temperature and so reduce reliance on air conditioning in summer and heating in winter, is one such innovative example that has been surprisingly popular – and, at least from the point of view of Uniqlo’s apparel sales, quite successful, although I don’t know of any figures that prove or disprove the success of these campaigns in terms of reducing electricity consumption.

There are also growing moves to reduce the number of plastic bags given out for all kinds of shopping, and there was a minor scandal last year when it was revealed that quite a few companies labeled their packaging as being made from “100% Recycled materials” when the real figure was often no more than 50%. There are even services such as Navitime which allow people to search for the best train and car routes, but which also show the amount of CO2 used by any particular route.

Just how much these moves will affect consumer attitudes is yet to be seen. Reducing plastic bag use is proving easy to sell to local consumers, but whether reducing packaging will be possible remains a big question mark. At the same time, any such move can only be praised as, clearly as we sweat through yet another May day, anything that helps reduce the impact of modern commerce on the environment is to be welcomed.