Articles

Rika Fujioka "What Will Happen to Our Department Stores? – The Emergence of Innovative Retail and Its Future"

2022.05.11

There was a time when Japanese people were thrilled by Western-style architecture and enjoyed shopping at department stores. Today, we freely enter and exit stores and browse through windows, but we often forget that these practices were all services created by department stores. Looking back, the impact of the birth of department stores on the retail industry is immeasurable.

However, recently we have heard news that the sales of department stores are on the decline due to the rise of online sales through e-commerce sites and the increasing demand for fast fashion. Are department stores destined to continue their decline without ever regaining their former glory? To explore the current state of department stores in the global era, we spoke with Rika Fujioka from Kansai University.

PROFILE

Rika Fujioka

Professor at the School of Commerce, Kansai University. She completed the coursework for her Doctorate in Business Administration at the Graduate School of Business at Osaka City University and holds a Ph.D. in Commerce. After working at the Department of Economics, University of Nagasaki, and the Department of Business Administration, Osaka University of Economics, she has been in her current position since April 2012. She was an academic visitor at Oxford University in 2009 and a visiting researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2016. Since April 2022, she has been a specialist researcher at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science's Research Center for Science Systems. Her books include "百貨店の生成過程" (Yuhikaku Publishing) and "Global Luxury: Organizational Change and Emerging Markets since the 1970s" (Palgrave Macmillan) (co-edited).

Focusing on the Development of the Retail Industry from Pre-War to Today

Could you tell us about your interests and research so far?

My interest lies in the development of retail formats. I became interested in the role department stores have played as retailing evolved from pre-war times.

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