What’s “Antenna shop”?

Japan has a land area of approximately 380,000㎢ (ranked 61st in the world). Examples of countries in the European region that have them of similar size are Germany and Finland. It is about the same size as countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia in Asia, and Congo and Zimbabwe in Africa. The percentage of land used as agricultural land and residential land other than forests in Japan is not very large, at about 32% of the national land area. Therefore, the transportation network within and between urban areas is much more developed throughout the country than in other countries, making it easy to travel to all corners of the country. In recent years, the number of overseas customers has increased dramatically, and they are now visiting not only large cities and famous tourist attractions, but also rural areas. However… Although it has become easier to disseminate information to the world on the Web, it is not very common for people to actually visit a region that does not have a large city or a famous tourist attraction. So, these local companies, municipalities, etc. are very focused on raising the profile of their local attractions and specialties.

Now, we would like to explain what we call an “Antenna shop”. The term “Antenna shop” is a Japanese-English word, so it is probably unfamiliar to people overseas. “Antenna shops” are stores opened by companies or local governments to introduce and promote their products and local specialties. They were also called “pilot stores”. Originally, the term “Antenna shop” was used to refer to stores where companies would conduct test sales of their products to gauge consumer response before releasing them to the market. In recent years, there has been a great increase in the number of such stores, operated primarily by local governments, opening in downtown areas of major cities. They can be found in urban buildings, large commercial facilities, station buildings, shopping malls, etc., either for a limited time or on a permanent basis. These “antenna stores” sell that local specialty foods and beverages, as well as traditional handicrafts. Many products that could only be purchased by visiting the region or area are available, and are very popular among the Japanese. For people from rural areas who live in urban areas, the appeal of these stores is that they can learn about nostalgic local products as well as new local specialties. Perhaps it can be said that the popularity of these stores is only possible today with the increasing concentration of population in urban areas. Many of the stores have not only sales outlets for local products, but also tourist information corners, making them quite interesting. Today, Japan has a very well-developed domestic logistics network, which makes it easy to obtain supplies from remote areas. However, we hope that you will visit the local area and experience it for yourself… Perhaps there should be also some enjoyment that can be experienced by doing so. We hope that the “Antenna Shops” we have introduced here will be a good opportunity for you to do so.