Office Depot Japan opened its' first store in November 1997. There are currently seven stores, both large and small. Real estate costs in Japan are much greater that of the U.S so it is very difficult to justify having all large locations.

Our customers reach us by foot or by train since our stores have no parking lots. The average sale is much smaller than in the U.S. because people can only buy what they can carry in their arms back to their office. This means delivery becomes a very important part of our distribution mix. We market our website/delivery capabilities strongly in our stores. Office Depot Japan, like the U.S., can provide overnight delivery of 10,000 items to customers all over Japan, through our large warehouse just outside Tokyo. We have our own call center, that handles catalog and fax orders, and opened our website in September 2000.

The website displays our full assortment, and has the same features and functionality as our other international websites. It was extremely difficult to create, because the Japanese language is a "double byte" system, which makes it unique in the world - this was not merely an issue of translating English to a different language - the whole site had to be created from scratch.

VIKING

Viking Office Products entered the Japanese market in March 1998. It uses the same hi-low pricing model as in other countries, and uses the same sophisticated ink-jet technology/database driven offers to customers as well. A separate call center handles the catalog, fax and internet offers. The Viking website launched in August 2000. Both websites are doing approximately 4% of our total catalog volume.

Factoids about Japan:

The population is roughly half that of the U.S. (approx. 130 million) but occupies a space the size of California. And, only 10% of the space is habitable, the rest being mountainous or farmland.