EX Marks the Spot in Japanese Classifieds
I lived in Japan for a few years and still maintain a few networks there. For a little while I even had some fair facility with the language. Well, at least enough to understand the original Dragonball anime (Dragonball Z was still manga at that time). This by no means makes me an expert--indeed I'm far from it--so please excuse the few liberties I take in generalizing my experience there. Consider the five pillar categories of Classifieds: goods, autos, jobs, real estate, and services. Win any two of these, and you'll probably win your Classifieds market. Let's talk about goods and autos. Goods in Japan = Electronics and Media (books, music, movies, and video games). Most mainstream users in the West will change technology every 2-3 years. Early adopters perhaps 6-9 months. Innovators 3-6. In Japan, technology changes every 30 days. 30 days! The Japanese consumer wants it compact, personalized, and jam-packed with every feature imaginable even if they aren't going to use those features. It's just good to know that biometric scanner is on your toaster if you ever need it. The electronics mainstream in Japan is shifted to the left, closer to the early adopters and innovators. So there isn't much of a market for second-hand electronics goods. By the time you tire of it and get around to selling it, next month's crop of hot, new gadgets will be out and no one will bother with an old model. The majority of used cars from Japan are actually exported. Some 1.5M cars were exported from Japan in 2007 (ref: Japanese Used Motor Vehicle Exporting Association). These are mostly to neighbors, namely Russia, New Zealand, and South East Asia. So if second-hand goods don't play well locally, what might a Japanese Classifieds strategy take? I can think of three:- exports
- exchange
- expat
Lost and Found in Tokyo
If you lost $250 or your shiny new iPhone on a train in New York, what chance do you think you'd have of getting it back? Air-bound swine and Hell-popsicles come to mind. In Tokyo, I'd be shocked if you didn't get it back. That's because Japan has an old culture of turning found items in to a government official. The law dates back as far as the early 8th century, and has been updated several times since, the most recent in 1958.
My information is very old--I have a call into the Tokyo Metropolitan Lost and Found Center, but translations are a bit tough--but more than 2 million items pass through the Tokyo Metropolitan Lost and Found warehouse, with more than 7500 items being turned in every day. Somewhere in excess of $35M in cash is turned in each year. Yes, that's million with an "M."
Items can range from bus passess, to umbrellas, to cellphones (their most popular item). Each item is meticulously catalogued and archived in the system. After six months, unclaimed items can go back to the finder or sold. Tokyo makes something between $4M-$5M each year from the sale of unclaimed items.
Don't quote me on these exact numbers. My Japanese is pretty rusty (read: non-existent) and the clerk or officer helping me (can't tell which) seemed a bit shaky on the numbers himself.
Part of the reason for this imprecision is that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department seems surprisingly low-tech. I mean no disrespect here. Perhaps this is simply the low-tech site they show to gaijin like me: http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/foreign/submenu.htm.
It seems to me that Tokyo Metropolitan is prime for a player to come in and create a national database and website to better catalog, track, and manage this vast inventory. The upside for such a venture? A tidy little Classifieds business for unclaimed items.
Future Directions
This model could easily be packaged and sold to metropolitan transit and police authorities anywhere. Take it a step further and integrate it with pawnbrokers to help police catch thieves at the point of sale. In Georgia, pawnbrokers are required to catalog items pawned/sold to them and report this in to the police. You know how this is done? Via spreadsheets and printouts. Now imagine a system where this is all online. A thief comes in to sell his stolen goods, as the pawnbroker enters the item into the system--via serial number presumably--it triggers an alert that is sent to a nearby squad car. As the thief steps out of the shop? Busted!
Now extend that same wonderful database into your SYI flow. I think that's a pretty compelling feature that no other online marketplace currently offers. Flash Sales
Online Classifieds are uniquely positioned to offer limited-time-only deals. Local availability and an ever-changing inventory create an inviting casual shopping experience. With Classifieds, there is a sense of immediacy still lacking from even the most efficient retail experience. People come back to browse because they never know what great deal they'll find. Blink and you could have missed that great deal on a flat panel television. Blink again and you just lost that semi-professional digital SLR camera. One such opportunity for these "Flash Sales" are last-minute cancellations. Consider the busy mom whose day is filled with work, errands, and a million other things. The next best thing to diamonds you can give a working mom is time. Imagine being able to browse your local Classifieds site to find the spa that just had a last minute massage cancellation. Squeeze in a mani-pedi while waiting for your oil change or car wash (which you also found by Flash Sale). Some of you might say that this isn't a large enough market opportunity to pursue. True. But that's not the point. You are creating unique inventory that your competitor does not have. Come for the Flash Sale, stay for all the other great deals and cool inventory we have.
Note that this is intended to have its own browse/search experience that is driven by time, and same-day-only at that. You have to make it dead-simple for the seller/supplier. They are not going to go through some form or web flow to do this. It's not worth their time.
One-button click, tweet, or interactive voice response (IVR).
EFFORT
1-2 weeks, depending on the maturity of your APIs.
BOOTSTRAPPING
Don't over-design this with some slick, sophisticated UI with a bunch of parsing, validation, categorization, tagging, and automation. Keep it simple. Someone looking for a last minute hair appointment doesn't need a whole lot of fancy features. Just the facts. Validate there's a market there first.
Talk to the top 5 spas and salons in your locality. Give them a simple one-click interface or dial-in phone system to post a quick Flash Sale. Provide a stack of small, informational cards and co-branded, promotional stress balls to leave at the spa/salon. Cheesy? Maybe. But I bet you'll get more visitors than a million-dollar tv and radio ad campaign.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Theater tickets, sporting events, dining reservations. Geo-tag them and you've got mobile opportunities.
Last-minute vacations, unsold hotel rooms, and stand-by flights. Create a new revenue opportunity by offering vacation cancellation insurance; offset your claims because you have a channel to unload cancelled accommodations.
Ever wonder what happens to the unsold produce, seafood, and flowers when those local farmers' markets wrap-up their morning? With Flash Sales on Classifieds you won't have to.
Again, Flash Sales are not about being a primary revenue stream. It's there to provide unique inventory offered nowhere else and reinforce the idea of Classifieds...local availability and fast-moving inventory. 