Customers of Right On are young at heart and enjoy the jeans casual style, regardless of their age or gender. To meet their needs, we always take on the opinions from store staff who work closely with customers, and incorporate these opinions in the procurement and introduction of our merchandise to ensure that customers' thoughts are reflected in our products. Our merchandising plan considers jeans as the core product family. We offer a broader variety of jeans than any other competitors and provide matching tops in a well-balanced manner with basic and trend lines. We also offer a rich selection of popular merchandise and sell collaboration models (our limited custom-made products) with national brands. We also aggressively differentiate our merchandise from those of our competitors by offering a broad range of private brands (our original products).
We demonstrate our "Product Dynamics" with a rich product line-up to create an atmosphere to make our customers want to go to Right On for shopping.
| Merchandise planning |
We formulate company-wide plans for the next season setting out the direction of merchandising for different garment types and including a merchandising map for each of the individual private brands. We also draft proposals on items ranging from the main commercial materials to be used to cut patterns and order volume. Additionally, we gather information on new materials and other subjects for research and development purposes. |
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| Budget control | Across our operations, we formulate a budget forecast for net sales, purchases, inventories, and gross profit for each merchandise category and for each store, allowing monitoring of progress whenever required. |
| Quality control | We update the quality standards manual, establish and maintain quality control systems, manage quality testing results, and respond to quality issues. |
| Preparations for opening of overseas stores |
We carry out surveys of proposed store locations and make preparations for store opening at proposed sites (wide-ranging investigation of laws, public order issues, market potential, distribution, etc.) |
| Press | We supply information on products, company initiatives, and other matters to the various media as appropriate and make use of magazines and other media as a means of expanding our loyal customer base. The Harajuku Design Office is also equipped with a permanent media showroom which lends out samples and serves as a base for interviews and other press activities. |
In partnership with our Merchandise Planning Team, we gather and analyze information on customer needs to carry out product development of private brands based on the "seasonal basics" concept of products that will appeal to a broad range of customers regardless of age or generation. Additionally, by releasing popular national brands and seasonal national brands, we offer a product range which allows the customer to experience the pleasure of making choices.
The Harajuku Design Office was established in March 2010 in Harajuku as a location ideal for gathering and disseminating information. Our product planning team and designers are permanently stationed at this Design Office, where research on the latest trends is carried out alongside formulation of proposals for research and development and for merchandise planning.
So as to reflect customer requests and reactions to products in our in-store product range, we gather front-line opinion systematically. In merchandise planning, procurement, release, and distribution, we make sure to ask the opinion of front-line staff and gain their understanding before going ahead. As opportunities to directly gather front-line opinion, we organize merchandise approval and confirmation meetings as and when necessary, where immediate issues are discussed and solutions worked out. Additionally, half-yearly merchandise exhibitions are held where nationwide store managers receive concrete product briefings and provide feedback on how we have reflected front-line opinion.
We offer an impressive selection of popular merchandise by dealing with the leading brands of jeans and diverse product categories surrounding jeans on an ongoing basis.We also enhance differentiation from our competitors through collaboration models and advanced sale of topical products. Particularly in the collaboration models, the number of national brands that participate in the collaboration with Right On has been steadily increasing, as these models have acquired a strong reputation among customers.
In order to more quickly meet diverse needs of customers, we have been also aggressively working on the development of private brand products. As we do in our main brand "BACK NUMBER", we offer merchandise that represents the characteristics of Right On for our customers.
The Scheme for Large Sales enables us to offer ideal product line-ups with the five pillars of success (the right time, the right product, the right quantity, the right place, and the right price).By offering "the right product" at "the right time" in "the right display," we reduce opportunity costs and losses from price cuts, and improve efficiencies in inventory. As the inventory risk declines, we are able to work on more challenging products.
