The day musical instrument stores disappear!

The US antitrust law, which prohibits mega-corporations from devouring profits through price-fixing like cartels, is a deterrent to unfair competition. Japan's Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), which may have followed that trend, also has an image of being an ally of justice with the motto of promoting fair and free competition. Most recently, Amazon has put pressure on its business partners for unilateral cooperation or to compensate for discounts at the time of sale to alleviate soaring domestic trucking costs. It is still fresh in my memory when an on-site inspection was conducted, saying that this may be an abuse of a superior bargaining position. The Fair Trade Commission is still an ally of justice for the common consumer.

However, there is one thing I don't understand. It's the recent points battle. Perhaps the origin of the battle begins with the history of Yodobashi Camera. I often made purchases at "Yodobashi in front of Shinjuku West Exit Station". After all, if you become a member, you can basically save 10% off the purchase price and use it for your next purchase, which is good news for consumers. Of course, the competitors did not sit by silently watching, and eventually they followed suit and each company began offering points. No, it would be more correct to say that they started throwing around points. Therefore, it looks like the idea of competing only on price, like K's Electronics did for a while, had disappeared before I even knew it.

In addition, a new competition of promoting your own brand of credit cards to attract customers has also begun. And because of the excessive competition, just applying for a credit card will provide you with thousands of yen like key money, and the offer that new customers can freely use that money to shop is still widely advertised. This is also good news for the common consumer, as you can get money just by applying for a credit card. Especially if they have a financial institution in their own group, like Rakuten, they can greatly increase their profits from the financial industry including the credit card business, and they are becoming an increasingly indispensable tool for online shopping companies.

However, the point of the points battle is the actual deficit sales. As a result of fierce price competition, the profits that major online shopping companies can obtain are almost zero for some products. Even so, deficit sales are avoided, because if it becomes too obvious, they will get busted by the FTC for unfair transactions. Therefore, the method of adding points to provide a larger, more substantial discount has become common practice these days. If you add up the points, the products are being sold in the red, but in order to beat the competition, it's okay to do that, and thus the points battle is all the rage.

In the end, the result of the points battle will be the disappearance of small and medium-sized musical instrument stores. This is because, when points are taken into consideration, there are many products that are actually being sold in the red. It is difficult for small and medium-sized musical instrument stores to develop promotions offering points, let alone continue to sell in the red. Therefore, the reality is that the violent points battle of these major companies has almost cut off the path of survival for musical instrument stores, and now these stores have no choice but to rely on services other than product sales such as offering music classes.

At one point, I sent an inquiry about this to the Japan Fair Trade Commission. Is it okay to allow substantial deficit sales to ramp up overall sales? I warned them that allowing this to continue warned would eventually result in the survival of only rich companies, and many local musical instrument stores would be destroyed. After some time, I received a written reply from the Fair Trade Commission. They noted that points are not discounts, and they are not relevant to unfair trading because the Commission did not know what the points are used for or how they are used. In other words, the points battle became an officially sanctioned battle.

Sound House has also participated in the battle since 2016 and continues to fight to this day. While other companies are offering radical and huge points programs of 5 times, 10 times, 20 times and 40 times, our company is focusing on a simple 10-times-the-points campaign. Sound House is now the largest in the industry, and is aiming to coexist with local musical instrument stores, and is considering supporting these musical instrument stores in the form of regional revitalization. Contrary to such intentions, I was caught up in a points battle before I knew it, and when I suddenly realized that I was competing in an ugly competition to eliminate musical instrument stores from the Japanese archipelago, I had mixed feelings. May it never be...! From Hokkaido to Yonaguni Island and Hateruma Island, I hope that there will always be local musical instrument stores where children can touch musical instruments, and carry on the tone of musical instruments. I'm pondering what I need to do now for that to be reality.