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Mail-Order Retailing in Pre-War Japan: A Pathway of Consumption Before the Emergence of the Mass Market

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The Historical Consumer

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Abstract

As is generally known, by the end of the nineteenth century the remarkable development of mail-order retailing in the United States had given birth to two retailing giants, Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward. Given the lack of highly developed distribution systems in the United States at the time, they supplied a large quantity of standardised goods at low prices to rural people, for the most part meeting the demand for basic everyday goods in the expanding frontier market. In Chandler’s historical study of big business, these two companies represented typical mass distribution corporations in the United States (Chandler, 1977). That is, they provided one of the main pathways of consumption over the course of the expansion of the mass market.

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Authors
  1. Isamu Mitsuzono
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds, UK

    Penelope Francks (Honorary Lecturer in Japanese Studies) (Honorary Lecturer in Japanese Studies)

  2. London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

    Janet Hunter (Saji Professor of Japanese Economic History) (Saji Professor of Japanese Economic History)

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© 2012 Isamu Mitsuzono

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Mitsuzono, I. (2012). Mail-Order Retailing in Pre-War Japan: A Pathway of Consumption Before the Emergence of the Mass Market. In: Francks, P., Hunter, J. (eds) The Historical Consumer. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230367340_11

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