lifestyle

Small firms dying out as aging owners struggle to find successors

25 Comments
By Tetsushi Kajimoto

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“Two decades of deflation has sapped owners’ appetite for business, many of whom have not benefited from Abenomics.”

And yet these folks still vote for the LDP in the misguided hope that things will go back to the old days.

11 ( +12 / -2 )

That's what happens when you don't have immigration.

5 ( +11 / -7 )

Robots can't save the loss of culture. You need immigration so people can take up activities that are valued and keep them alive

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Sad...but demographics and supporting the LDP have contributed to this.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Many of these companies would have been out of business in the first place if Japan did not protect its markets through complex import red tape.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

This notion of mom-and-pop firms dying out is particularly evident with respect to the family-owned dairy farms in Japan. Thus the frequent and chronic butter shortages which are growing conspicuously worse every year.

Aging Japanese dairy farmers have been retiring in droves, particularly over the last decade. There are 66% as many dairy farms now in Japan as there were in 2008, and the number those farms has long been dropping by about 4% per year.

Here are some numbers from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. in 1963 there were 417,600 dairy farms in Japan. The number was 25,400 in 2007, and dropped to 17,000 in 2016. The number of dairy cows in Japan is also dropping precipitously.

Here are the stats if anyone is interested (second to last page): http://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Livestock%20and%20Products%20Annual_Tokyo_Japan_9-10-2016.pdf

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Here in my Shinjuku neighborhood, the local mom and pop bakeries, coffee shops, supermarkets, ramen shops, soba shops, stationary shops, bento shops are all gone. It is because none of my friends wanted to take over the family business. They would rather work 9 to 5 at a desk job than do the hard work of running a family business. Mainly I miss all the variety because everyone did things a little different. And they knew who you were, in my case, since I was a little kid. Not like chain stores. And now the first-floor shop and second-floor residence buildings are being torn down and replaced with just a house.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Sad as it may be, these businesses have become relics of a bygone time when corporations made the management decisions that affected the retail end of their business through a series of tied distributorships. With the change in the "big box" store laws, it was simply a matter of time until many smaller businesses became collateral damage. Money that once remained in circulation in the local community is now siphoned off to corporate HQs across the globe, and people who were once proud small business owners have become wage slaves after seeing years of sweat and toil come to nil. There is a cost to everything, and often it's the unseen costs that are highest.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Takayasu Watanabe, 72, has closed a chalk-making business in Nagoya, that his family had operated for more than 80 years

At the risk of sounding harsh, the world has moved on, people want whiteboard markers. Was Watanabe a Kodak to someone else's Fujifilm?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

So the chalk industry isn’t on the up and up? Well consider all my stocks in chalk pulled.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Why don't they sell their businesses ?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

At the risk of sounding harsh, the world has moved on, people want whiteboard markers.

Newer does not necessarily mean better. While I could be mistaken, I get the impression that chalk is much more environmentally friendly than markers and white boards considering the processing necessary to manufacture dry board markers. I don't think markers can be easily recycled. Chalk, on the other hand, uses is more or less harmless and easily found in nature and does leave a dangerous footprint on the environment.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Chalk or calcium carbonate is vital in soil improvement and sanitation. It's also used in varieties of products from toothpaste to cosmetics.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Whenever I give a lecture in a room with a white board and markers it's almost guaranteed that all of the markers are out of ink. Then again, inhaling chalk dust is not very good for the lungs.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

It's amazing how such a simple technology has lasted this long. I can't see chalk and chalkboards replaced by a lesser choice over time.

You could technically eat the chalk and improve your calcium. Compare that to the smell and garbage production of white board markers and their boards that wear out a lot faster than quality slate. Also you stain your clothes with chalk, it can be brushed off. Good luck with a broken marker (which happens often! grr)

It's all in the marketing though. Maybe brand it as e-chalk given the style in Japan of late.

Perimeter Institute in physics research in Kitchener Waterloo Canada is full of chalkboards for people to just walk around and write whenever inspiration hits. For our creative economies you need chalkboards. The nearby University of Waterloo also has chalkboards in residence units along walls for masters students. I hope they extend that to undergrads too.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There's an article further down the page today titled "BlackBerry lesson: Adapt or die in the internet age". 'Adapt or die' sums up these 'mom and pop' businesses. It seems that a large number of these businesses just expect to go on and on without changing anything. Not changing with the times, not having a succession plan in place, continuing to head up the business well past retirement age, not diversifying etc.

Is it really a surprise that a company making chalk for blackboards has gone out of business? No.

Is chalk for blackboards the only thing that can be made from chalk? No!

Look at Nintendo - they didn't start off making video games.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

“It is futile to expand the factory with high interest loans,"

Are high interest loans the result of negative interest rates? IT seems that banks should be able to give lower interest loans now.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I wish the universities I teach at had white boards. Chalk is messy.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Here in my Shinjuku neighborhood, the local mom and pop bakeries, coffee shops, supermarkets, ramen shops, soba shops, stationary shops, bento shops are all gone. It is because none of my friends wanted to take over the family business. They would rather work 9 to 5 at a desk job than do the hard work of running a family business. Mainly I miss all the variety because everyone did things a little different. And they knew who you were, in my case, since I was a little kid. Not like chain stores. And now the first-floor shop and second-floor residence buildings are being torn down and replaced with just a house.

True, but for many they cost too much and could not and can not compete with the chain stores either. Nostalgic as it may be, my wallet comes first, particularly in an economy where wages are stagnant.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Chalk is messy, but I like it - five colors, never runs out of ink, can be used for emphasis and creativity. Try teaching an 80-person seminar with whiteboard markers. Recently, I noticed that the calk my university uses is made from recycled shellfish shells (mostly scallop, I think) - so they probably get their material for free and reduce a burden from fishermen. Life moves on.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The point of this article is not about businesses being obsolete, its about no one to turn over the business to for these old folks. New management could make new products. But there is no new management. Kids are not interested in being self-employed, they would rather work for someone else and let them take the risk. Not all but most young people.

Amazing how readers project their own meaning into fairly straight forward text.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

True, but for many they cost too much and could not and can not compete with the chain stores either. Nostalgic as it may be, my wallet comes first, particularly in an economy where wages are stagnant.

I understand your point, and my following comment is not a criticism of your actions, but rather a criticism of society:

This is the race to the bottom. The more people buy cheaper things, the less sole proprietorships can afford to operate. The less sole proprietorships there are, the less money flowing through the middle class. The less money in the middle class, the more people need to shop at big retailers to be able to support themselves.

People think cheaper is better, and why buy something that is more expensive when you can get it cheaper online, or at a big retailer or whatever. But the more we buy the cheapest, the less money the middle class has, and the bigger the lower class gets. And at the same time, the upper class gets richer and richer, as the money that the middle class loses funnels upwards.

It's a losing cycle, and the rich just keep getting richer. This is why the race to the bottom is so bad.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

After the war, the economy was growing quickly and there were no shops, factories or anything. There was a good chance for many people to open a business. And people was motivated to do so, because they had nothing else.

Today you have a generation of kids that have had everything, and have been told to follow a path in life were risks are reduced to a minimum. They are also lazy enough to prefer a "safe" office position, even if it means pseudo-slavery for life.

But the economy is terrible, manufacturing has been placed in China, and most of the market is dominated by big corporations that you can't compete with if you open a small company.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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