CBC

Mon Dec 11, 8:44 am

Japanese economy stressing out store owners

The lingering economic hard times in Japan are exacting a brutal toll on the retail sector, to the point where one shop owner's frustration recently boiled over.

Angered by shoppers who don't shop, choosing instead to browse, one Tokyo clothier attacked a woman who looked at a coat and returned it to the rack.

The store owner forced the woman to apologize on her knees and took all her money as a down-payment on the coat – she would buy the coat whether she wanted to or not.

He was arrested after the assault, but Japanese retailers feel as though they, too, are under attack.

Small retailers are squeezed between a recession that has lingered for years, and deregulation that has allowed huge superstores to open, attracting thousands of shoppers.

The entire country has been groaning since the early 1990s under rising unemployment, price deflation, and sluggish growth.

People have been reluctant to spend. And now the added competition from operations such as Costco and other international retail lines are finally driving many small retailers out of business.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), December 11, 2000