Kazuo Usui is a Professor at Saitama University, Faculty of Economics, Japan, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh, Business School, UK.

• Introduction Part 1: Marketing and Consumption from c.1905 to 1937 Historical Settings 1. ‘Reeks of Butter and Milk’? Marketing of Western-style Sweets through the Keiretsu Retail Network 2. ‘Miss Shiseido’: Marketing an Image with the Help of Keiretsu 3. Lighting as Enlightenment: Consumer Life with Modern Western Technologies 4. ‘Tomorrow I’ll go to Mitsukoshi’: The Department Store, a Dream or a Threat of Modernity? Part 2: Marketing and Consumption, High Economic Growth to the Present Historical Settings 5. ‘Discount is My Philosophy’: Consumption of Everyday Necessities from Super 6. ‘Sacred Treasures’ for Every Home: Keiretsu vs. Independent Retailers of Electrical Products 7. Convenience Stores: Born in America and Revised in Japan Summing up

"Professor Kazuo Usui has produced an original and insightful study of retail evolution and consumption in Japan. The use of a variety of sources to explain the changing distribution structures is an impressive template for studies of the retail and consumer history in other societies." – John Dawson, University of Edinburgh Business School