Create Resilient Stores

The Group is strengthening its efforts to ensure safety and security. In 2020, we revised the JFR Crisis Management Rules and compiled the JFR Crisis Management Manual in a structured manner.
The stores of Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores and Parco and operating companies periodically provide disaster training and BCP training to prepare for earthquakes and fires. At the same time, in light of the experience when our stores were hit by great earthquakes (the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake and the Great East Japan Earthquake), we put in place a safety confirmation systems to check the status of all employees promptly when a disaster occurs. And we have included in the BCP plan changes to the manual regarding specific actions to take and use of multiple means of communication (e.g. wireless hand-held devices for use during disasters, company smartphones, the corporate intranet, etc.). In addition, the Group places emergency walkie-talkies in all operating companies and we are continuously increasing stockpiles such as drinking water and emergency food.
With regard to COVID-19, we established the Emergency Response Headquarters at an early stage and continue to ake thorough infection prevention measures in an organized manner. In addition, we are verifying the measures we have taken so far and compiling an Infection Response Manual in preparation for a new pandemic in the future.

Measures to Prevent the Spread of the COVID-19 Infection

The Group strives to prevent the COVID-19 infections giving top priority to the safety and security of customers and workers including suppliers.
Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores and Parco take safety and security measures, such as creating an environment that does not have the three Cs and strengthening air conditioning in buildings, to prevent the COVID-19 infection. We ask customers to wear masks, measure their body temperature with thermography, and use alcohol sanitizer at the entrance. In addition, for employees, health management is thoroughly implemented and measures are taken to prevent infections, including the use of anti-droplet shields.
Going forward, while more thoroughly implementing existing measures, we will introduce as many new measures as possible to prevent the spread of infection.

New measures taken by Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores as of August 2021

• Showing the number of customers who stay in the store
• Anti-virus paint on the equipment used by a large number of unspecified customers, including elevators, escalators, powder rooms, and the wrapping desks of food departments
• Placing more sterilizers in employee facilities
and others

Safe and Secure Contactless Payment Service

The Group also proceeds with initiatives for contactless cashless payment.
In June 2021, Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores newly added “app payment service” to existing “Daimaru Matsuzakaya app.” A customer can complete his/her payment with just a smartphone by registering his/her Daimaru Matsuzakaya credit card on the app.
Parco operates POCKET PARCO, an app that provides mobile QR code payment service. Furthermore, Parco expanded and improved payment functions and provide one-to-one service based on location information and buying information and distributes owned media PARCO Journal with media commerce function that allows users to buy from the articles of the Journal to improve convenience.
Going forward, we will try new initiatives to contribute to the safety and security of customers.

Contactless Communication Using Digital Technologies

Introduced cross-border live commerce for China

In June 2020, Parco launched cross-border live commerce for China. It is intended to continuously communicate with and provide information for foreign customers amid decreased inbound demand and to support Parco’s tenants by creating new sales. We aim to build a sustainable scheme in which each stakeholder can continuously participate even after inbound demand recovers.

Virtual events for gaisho customers

An event for gaisho customers Kihinkai was held physically, and at the same time, virtually as live shopping.
We also strengthen the dedicated website “connaissligne,” which offers selected products, information and services to gaisho customers. Communication with customers is revitalized through connaissligne. For example, a customer who could not travel abroad due to COVID-19 asked for advice about buying luxury brands. Going forward, we will proceed with the shift of our gaisho business, mainly sales of luxury brands, to OMO as media that expand customer touch points.

Virtual Market

Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores opened a next generation store Virtual Daimaru Matsuzakaya in the Virtual Market 2021, the world’s largest VR event organized by HIKKY Co., Ltd. In the virtual market in the metaverse, 3D items such as avatars and real goods (clothes, PCs, food and beverages, etc.) can be bought and sold.
During the event, a “metaverse banquet” was held and staff from Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores as avatars served customers and introduced recommended gourmet products. Customers were able to hold a 3D model of a food product in their hands to check the shape of the product before buying it. More than 100 customers visited the event.
We are working on new communication with customers, shopping experience, and service experience that cannot be experienced in physical stores.

Responsible Marketing

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, customer awareness of the safety and security of health and food is increasing. Therefore, the Group added an item of “responsible marketing” to the JFR Principles of Action and the JFR Principles of Action for Suppliers as our responsibility to customers in January 2021. We will fulfill our responsibility to customers by considering the health impact of alcohol and processed food and providing correct and easy-to-understand allergy information on food labels.

JFR Principles of Action

“Food” Quality Control

The Group will thoroughly carry out responsible marketing activities in order to provide customers with safe and secure products and services. For the products and services we handle, including alcohol^*, processed foods, and beverages, we will strive to ensure the safety of products and services and to provide accurate and easy-to-understand information to customers in consideration of the health effects of misuse and excessive consumption.

In order to ensure food safety, department store and other food-related business companies conduct appropriate management in accordance with management rules concerning food labeling and expiration dates, while periodically checking the status of food control in cooperation with Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute. The Group has in place a system that enables prompt action to be taken in cooperation with compliance promotion staff of each company in the Group when a serious food-related accident occurs.

Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores places “food hygiene staff” at Merchandising Strategy Promotion Unit and each store. They conduct hygiene inspections of sales floors and kitchens based on periodic/monthly/weekly/daily schedules, remedy based on the results of these inspections, check labeling including use-by/best-before dates, allergy labeling, content labeling and the presence or absence of mislabeling, and manage crises if any arises. All employees of food divisions always carry with them and use the Department Store Food Safety and Sanitation Passport prepared by the Japan Department Stores Association. In September 2017, a dedicated task team was created in the Administration Division of the Head Office to further strengthen the safety and security of food, for example, by standardizing operating procedures and the method of confirmation across the company.

Health and Nutrition Initiative

The Group‘s core businesses include Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores and Parco, which operate stores nationwide, and have many customer touch points. Based on such business characteristics, we aim to contribute to the realization of the Well-Being of our customers by providing high quality, comfortable products and services that help our customers live a healthy and secure life both physically and mentally.

(Access to better nutrition)

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our customers’ values and lifestyles dramatically and there is a growing need for products and services that lead to good health and security. In developed countries, there is an increasing risk of acquiring lifestyle diseases, such as obesity, due to the undernourishment of the elderly and nutritional imbalance caused by changes in lifestyles in a super-aging society. It has become a major social issue.
In light of these circumstances, the Group recognizes that its important role is to provide its customers with access to better nutrition and help them have healthy and secure eating habits. We provide nutrition-conscious products at our stores and through a variety of other channels to make it easier for our customers to select them.
In addition, Daimaru and Matsuzakaya support the activities of TABLE FOR TWO International (TFT), a certified NPO that provides meal support to children in developing countries, and provides nutrition-conscious meals at their restaurants and employee cafeterias.
Going forward, we promise to contribute to the realization of our customers’ healthy, safe, and secure life through our business activities.

(Negative impact of processed foods)

The Group considers the growing health consciousness of its customers, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and undernourishment. For this reason, we aim to provide products that contain as few food additives as possible and to provide nutritionally balanced products that do not contain too much salt, sugar, and fat. Through these initiatives, we promise to contribute to ensuring our customers’ health, safety, and security.

(Negative impact of alcohol (alcoholic beverages))

With regard to sales of alcohol (alcoholic beverages), the Group understands that inappropriate drinking, such as underage drinking, maternal drinking, and massive drinking, not only impairs health but also leads to many problems. Based on this recognition, we promise to respond to these issues when selling alcohol (alcoholic beverages) by, for example, alerting our customers.

Certified Product Offerings

The Group is strengthening offerings of environmentally and socially friendly products that have acquired third-party certifications to provide our customers with healthy, safe, and secure lives.
Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores surveyed the status of offerings of certified products such as “organic JAS” certified products and products with “international fair trade certification labels” in the grocery and fresh fish sections on the food floor of each store.
Going forward, we will further expand the range of products that satisfy our customers and promote efforts to make our customers aware of our certified product offerings.

Participation in Food Safety Organization

Against the backdrop of growing consumer interest in “food safety and security,” Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute, an operating company in the Group, became a member of the Japan Food Safety Management Association, and in 2019, the company was registered as an assessment company under the JFS-A/B Audit and Conformity Assessment Program.

The JFS standards are food safety management standards originating in Japan, which were developed by food-related business operators and experts. The standards consist of three layers of requirements: Food Safety Management Systems, HACCP, and Good Manufacturing Practice.

Currently, as a JFS standards assessment company of the Food Safety Management Association, they audit and judge whether a company provides food safely in accordance with the standards.
In addition, in response to the amended Food Sanitation Act in June 2020, which in principle requires all food business operators to implement hygiene control based on the HACCP principles, the company operates a business to support the introduction of HACCP.

“Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute” as Quality Professional in the Retail Industry

Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute (the “Institute”) operates in Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya. Its operations include tests to identify product performance and the causes of complaints, the verification of product labels and expressions in sales promotion media under relevant laws and regulations, and consulting, trainings and seminars concerning product control in general. The Institute sends certified consultants to the Consultation Corners for Consumers in a total of ten stores of Daimaru, Matsuzakaya and associated department stores.

For the companies in the Group, the Institute conducts various tests to ensure the safety of products in use including quality tests of various products for sale, load bearing tests of wrapping paper and shopping bags and color fastness tests, as well as pre-sale tests, product label checks at stores and hygiene inspections of food floors and restaurants.

To give an example, concerning the Daimaru and Matsuzakaya common shopping bag for food products, it withstood a load of up to approximately 40kg at rest in the Institute’s strength test before adoption and it was found not to be damaged after being moved up and down with a weight of 7kg inside it 10,000 times at a speed of 50 times per minute. As a result of these tests, it was provided for practical use. Since such data are shared among workers at the department stores, they can provide appropriate paper bags to shoppers depending on the weight of the products sold to them. Thus it helps improve services.

The Institute also meets its corporate social responsibility by providing companies outside the Group with opportunities to ensure active response to consumer issues through seminars (charged) concerning the matters retailers should know to comply with laws and regulations and avoid consumer complaints using its rich expertise concerning quality tests acquired as an institute in the Group. The subjects of the most recent seminars include (1) “Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores quality control of textile products – From the analysis of quality complaints caused by materials” and (2) “JIS care labeling symbols consistent with international standards.”

VOICE
SHINO Takeshi, Quality Control Manager, Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute Co., Ltd.

Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute Co., Ltd. provides Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores with services associated with product quality control in general including proposal for, creation and implementation of self-control rules concerning quality control and food sanitation within the company and provision of information, creation of solutions, etc. when quality issues arise inside and outside the company.

We place the Consultation Corners for Consumers in the stores of Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores and send certified consultants for consumers’ affairs to appropriately respond to customer’s request for consultation and provide appropriate advice.

In order to support the companies in the Group in developing better relations with their customers, we will aim at continuous improvement for better quality control and help provide better quality products thinking of “what quality customers demand” first from “user’s perspective” and with “solid judgment backed up with performance.“

Protection of Personal Information

In order to ensure the protection of customers’ personal information, with basic policies and the codes of conduct relating to the protection and management of personal information in place, we educate the employees of all the companies in the Group and check their management status systematically. JFR Card Co., Ltd. and JFR Information Center Co., Ltd., both of which handle all the customer information data of Daimaru and Matsuzakaya, have acquired the “Privacy Mark” certification to protect customers’ personal information

Expansion of AED (automatic external defibrillator) Training and Establishment of Lifesaving System

It is urgent in the light of social demand that department stores, which many customers visit, have more workers who know how to operate an AED. Therefore, we increase training opportunities so that more workers can operate an AED. We have placed AEDs in all the Daimaru and Matsuzakaya stores and provide normal lifesaving training sessions in these stores to enable initial response to emergencies.

Each of the Daimaru and Matsuzakaya stores has periodically provided “normal lifesaving training sessions” with cooperation from fire stations. We will establish a system that enables an appropriate response to emergencies by increasing the number of trainees through regular trainings, placing AEDs at appropriate sites that are easily recognizable and the sites where cardiac arrests are highly likely to occur, and clearly showing where they are located.

Creation of Barrier-Free Stores

Each of the Daimaru, Matsuzakaya, and Parco stores always reviews its facilities and services and makes them barrier-free so that the disabled, the elderly and customers with children can shop at ease.

＜Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores＞

For all customers

• When it rains, the entrance floor gets wet and slippery. Therefore, we put mats on the entrances and use non-slip (or non-slip processed) floor material.
• We eliminate difference in level on the floors of the stores to the extent possible. In case it is infeasible, we put a gentle 1 in 12 slope as directed by the Government.

For wheelchair users

• The entrances are equipped with automatic doors and the floors on the front and back of the doors are flat so that they are easily accessible to wheelchair users.
• Some elevators are designated for dedicated use or priority use by wheelchair or stroller users so that they can move from one floor to another safely and speedily. (There is no such designation at some stores.)
• The stop buttons, floor buttons and open/close buttons of elevators are placed lower as well as at a normal position for easy use. A mirror is placed at the front of elevator so that wheelchair users can get backward out of the elevator.
• Each of the restrooms for customers has a wheelchair accessible booth. They are also equipped with baby changing tables and some (not all) booths have ostomate facilities.
• We are in the process of installing large wheelchair accessible fitting rooms.

For visually impaired people

• Braille blocks direct them from the entrance to information desks and elevator halls. Floor guides in Braille are also provided on the stair rails. Where the parking place and the sales floor are connected with a bridge, Braille blocks are provided to guide them and a slope is placed to eliminate difference in level.
• All elevators are equipped with a voice announcement system, which tells passengers at which floor the elevator is arriving and the door is opening or closing. Braille is also provided below each button.

For customers with babies and toddlers

• Facilities equipped with baby changing tables, water heaters for making baby milk, and breast feeding booths are provided adjacent to children’s wear departments.
• Each booth in the restrooms is equipped with a baby seat so that customers can use toilets at ease.

For elderly people

• Fitting rooms are equipped with handrails to accommodate the needs of the target customers of each sales department.
• The color combination and contrast of signs for customers are designed to ensure high visibility.

＜Parco＞

For all customers

• We eliminate difference in level on the floors of the stores to the extent possible. In case it is infeasible, we put a gentle 1 in 12 slope as directed by the Government.

For wheelchair users

• The entrances are equipped with automatic doors so that they are easily accessible to wheelchair users. (Excluding some stores)
• Some elevators are designated for dedicated use or priority use by wheelchair or stroller users so that they can move from one floor to another safely and speedily. (Excluding some stores)
• Each of the restrooms for customers has a wheelchair accessible booth.
• A mirror is placed at the front of elevator so that its users can get backward out of the elevator.

For visually impaired people

• The operation buttons of elevators are placed lower as well as at a normal position for easy use，and braille is installed on the buttons.

For customers with babies and toddlers

• Facilities equipped with baby changing tables, water heaters for making baby milk, and breast-feeding booths are provided. (Excluding some stores)
• Some stores have private restrooms exclusively for customers with babies and toddlers and are equipped with baby carriers and baby beds.

For elderly people

• Each restroom booth has a handrail.
• Slopes have handrails.

*1 The lending of baby strollers may be temporarily discontinued due to conditions such as infectious diseases.
*2 Introduced Oi Tr, a service that provides feminine napkins free of charge, in some women's toilets

Operation of Customer Service Office

At the “Consultation Corners for Consumers” of the Daimaru and Matsuzakaya stores, consultants certified as advisory specialists for consumers’ affairs accept comments from customers regarding product quality. Comments from customers are sent to Consumer Product End-Use Research Institute online for scientific quality inspection. Consultants inform customers of the results. These test results are also provided to relevant stores and manufacturers to prevent recurrence and improve quality.

Realization of Customers’ Healthy/Safe/Secure Life

• Well-Being Life Proposed for Customers

• Contribution to the Safety and Security of Customers

• Initiatives to Improve Customer Satisfaction

• Social Contribution Activities with Customers

• Contribution to Art and Culture