Young Entrepreneurs take To The Streets

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Roving pushcart vendors making comeback on Tokyo streets
Vendors pulling two-wheeled carts selling items including vegetables on the streets have become a common sight in Tokyo. Recently, contrary to expectations that such vendors are a holdover from the Showa era, I have been struck by the number of young people working as pushcart vendors. It seems there are also some people who have started their own pushcart businesses...On an afternoon in late January at the east exit of JR Oimachi Station in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, Masaki Sukeda, 33, arrived on a tricycle that he had modified from a bicycle...Sukeda sells seasonal vegetables brought in from across the country, including spinach from Chiba Prefecture and ginger from Kochi Prefecture. Previously, Sukeda was employed at an IT firm dealing in real estate information. In September, he struck out on his own with a colleague and set up a firm selling items in shopping malls from firms in regional areas..."I can feel the joy of selling more than selling information over the Internet," Sukeda said...Seiko Yamazaki, who researches consumption trends at Dentsu Communication Institute Inc., the research and consultation arm of ad agency Dentsu Inc., said: "Pushcart vending is becoming one option for young entrepreneurs as it can be done with little capital...more...

While you have to admire anyone with the get-up-and go to find a way to make a living, I'm not sure the economic implications of young people becoming street car vendors are wonderful. Perhaps the writer would like to see the return of the honey wagon too.

[Number11]

I can see your point, if money means everything to you. I think it's much more respectable than than being a banker, lawyer or financial instrument shyster.

[nottu]

[Dragonette]

...
Rocky Aoki didn't do too bad selling ice cream in Central Park.

Yeah, moneywise Rocky was a big success, but nobody with any common sense could envy him, his wives or his omekake. He might have been better off if he had stuck to his ice cream truck.

So, make a choice...
Sararyman - An insufferably boring job, mandatory drinking, supporting a resentful family of semi-strangers, and a used-up body at 50.

Veggie Seller - An outdoor job, lots of exercise, become a drunk or not - up to you, and, if that's to your taste, get to "comfort" all those frustrated sararyman-okusans.

...or you could pay a visit to Aokigahara

Duh...

[Mulboyne]

The most profitable, legal street vendors in Japan sell prepared food. As the economy worsened, local retailers took against many of them and got the authorities to deny them a licence renewal or else move on those which were not strictly illegal but nevertheless had no official permission, even if they had been operating for years. The authorities also started granting more 24 hour licences to fast food chains which took some of the late night trade away anyway.

There used to be reasonable oden yatai and street bars in Shibuya right on Dogenzaka and around the corner in front of what is now Mark City. One good quality Italian yatai used to open up late in the evening near Tengenjibashi in Hiroo. They even had decent wine at a time when it wasn't always available in ordinary bars and restaurants. These have all gone now.

You can still find a few street ramen and takoyaki carts around the city, as well as kebab vans, but I suspect most are ultimately run by gangs. It will be interesting to see what happens if the government does go ahead with a smoking ban in public places. Those outdoor bars and restaurants would have thrived in such an environment and I suspect they might make a comeback.

You can make a decent sum while flouting the law without resorting to selling drugs. One foreigner, who ran a team of guys selling shirts and scarves on the streets outside major sports events around Japan, asked me once how to invest his savings/launder his money and it turned out he had well over 100,000 euros. I couldn't help him but resolved to be a bit more careful about letting him ponce drinks off me all night.

I think our guy selling fresh produce will struggle to accumulate the kind of capital that Rocky Aoki managed because the margins are so thin. Even street bento sellers don't have great margins these days. Perhaps that's not his goal in life and all power to him if he's happy. Under the current regulatory environment, however, it's difficult to see street vending offering a decent livelihood to many people, no matter how folksy it seems.

[Catoneinutica]

You can still find a few street ramen and takoyaki carts around the city, as well as kebab vans, but I suspect most are ultimately run by gangs....

...Under the current regulatory environment, however, it's difficult to see street vending offering a decent livelihood to many people, no matter how folksy it seems.

I know TIJ, but this seems glaringly contradictory even by TIJ standards: the "current regulatory environment" obtains...well, except when it doesn't (the yak-operated carts/vans).

I think almost any display of entrepreneurship is a good thing in this sclerotic country. Seattle has innumerable espresso carts, and many of them do very well indeed. And LA, like a lot of American cities, has a large number of itinerant Mexican food vendors, and they seem to be pretty popular. Pulling a rickshaw, hawking dodgy food, peddling magazines - it's all better than hikkikomori-ing or killing one's self, ne pas?

-catone

-if the J-regulators need something to regulate, and God knows they do, why don't they go after the J-mansion developers who turn buyers into mortgage serfs with no chance of ever selling at other than a loss, or "financial planners" flogging the bubblelicious investment vehicle du jour.

[Christoff]

im starting a crack gang in japan, as in the U.S. they are the most profitable street vendors.

[Mulboyne]

...I think almost any display of entrepreneurship is a good thing in this sclerotic country...

That's my point. Street vending used to be legal, or at least grey-area legal, in many areas and offered an entrepreneur a chance to get a start without needing guarantors or significant seed capital. You could do this as recently as ten years ago. Currently, the regulatory environment allows only mob-linked businesses or barely profitable enterprises onto the streets. We need a crackdown on the mob and more liberal licensing of genuine businesses before we can celebrate young people taking to pushing carts around cities.

Unfortunately, the police find it easier to go after street traders than street touts and are encouraged by the owners of the numerous new mixed-use complexes in Japan who want the public to be using their shops and restaurants.

[Catoneinutica]

That's my point. Street vending used to be legal, or at least grey-area legal, in many areas and offered an entrepreneur a chance to get a start without needing guarantors or significant seed capital. You could do this as recently as ten years ago. Currently, the regulatory environment allows only mob-linked businesses or barely profitable enterprises onto the streets. We need a crackdown on the mob and more liberal licensing of genuine businesses before we can celebrate young people taking to pushing carts around cities.

Unfortunately, the police find it easier to go after street traders than street touts and are encouraged by the owners of the numerous new mixed-use complexes in Japan who want the public to be using their shops and restaurants.

Ahh...got it.

Cristoff, you should read the chapter in "Freakonomics" on the business of crack-dealing. The compensation works out to minimum wage for the entry-level positions, but the potential for advancement is extremely attractive. Alas, the on-the-job mortality rate is about 25%.

[Taro Toporific]

Last year, Tsukiji Noguchiya, a Chuo Ward, Tokyo-based firm which sells tofu and yuba bean skim, received an average of 80 applications a month for jobs as pushcart vendors. The company said it was nearly a four-fold rise over three years ago, and every day, nearly 100 people are selling the firm's products from pushcarts.

The tofu carts come by my place all the time... pushed by recent college grads who failed to land a cushy job.

Sadly, these tofu carts are NOT entrepreneurship but rather a borderline scam like Avon or Amway. There are a couple of sleazy firms that rent the carts for mucho-yen to suckers who are then forced to buy tofu from the company at a jacked-up wholesale price.

The cart's "high-quality tofu" sells for 4 times the price of supermarket tofu and 2 times the price of my neighborhood's up-scale tufu shop.

[Catoneinutica]

The tofu carts come by my place all the time... pushed by recent college grads who failed to land a cushy job.

Sadly, these tofu carts are NOT entrepreneurship but rather a borderline scam like Avon or Amway. There are a couple of sleazy firms that rent the carts for mucho-yen to suckers who are then forced to buy tofu from the company at a jacked-up wholesale price.

The cart's "high-quality tofu" sells for 4 times the price of supermarket tofu and 2 times the price of my neighborhood's up-scale tufu shop.

Meh, is the anything the Japanese don't turn into a FAIL-fest?

[Samurai_Jerk]

The most profitable, legal street vendors in Japan sell prepared food. As the economy worsened, local retailers took against many of them and got the authorities to deny them a licence renewal or else move on those which were not strictly illegal but nevertheless had no official permission, even if they had been operating for years. The authorities also started granting more 24 hour licences to fast food chains which took some of the late night trade away anyway.

I saw a lot of the lunchtime street vendors disappeare from Nihonbashi between 2007 and 2009. Is that the reason?

I hate the way development always seems to coincide with getting rid of a lot of what makes a place cool. Seoul certainly ain't the same without its street vendors.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I know of hundreds of young girls making decent money peddling on the streets...

[Christoff]

I know of hundreds of young girls making decent money peddling on the streets...

i bet...

[Ketou]

I know of hundreds of young girls making decent money peddling on the streets...

Are their wares worth the prices set?

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Are their wares worth the prices set?

It depends on how they wear their wares...

[Samurai_Jerk]

It depends on how they wear their wares...

Turn that whore out if she's wore out.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Surprise, surprise, Tokyo wards are stepping up their regulation of street vendors, especially those selling prepared food. Chuo ward is appointing 6 members of the public to act as watchdogs to oversee guerrilla bento sellers and may take direct action against persistent offenders. The ward says that it is concerned about health and safety given that there's no oversight into how the food is prepared and stored.

[Greji]

Surprise, surprise, Tokyo wards are stepping up their regulation of street vendors, especially those selling prepared food. Chuo ward is appointing 6 members of the public to act as watchdogs to oversee guerrilla bento sellers and may take direct action against persistent offenders. The ward says that it is concerned about health and safety given that there's no oversight into how the food is prepared and stored.

It was so easy in the old days before they passed the series of anti-yakusa laws. The fellows ran all of the street corners and you paid your commission and ran your food cart (1,000 yen or you don't work this corner). Most of them always had two or three hookers at the cheapest prices around for collateral entertainment and life was good.

Now everything is difficult and thousands are dying of food poisoning and taxes will have to be raised to pay for more watchdogs to rid the public of these menaces, plus, worse yet, it will make it harder to find cheap hookers.

[hairygateau]

old thread but very interesting. was starting to wonder why there were few ways of buying fresh fruit around maronouchi the other day, and glumly assumed it was due to direct local govt intervention rather than lack of animal spirits.

oh well, there goes another plan B.