I saw this article about a broom company located in Tokyo, Japan that has not had a customer since 1972! First of all, how do you stay in business all these years without customers? Aside from that issue, I have other concerns. First to put it in perspective, in 1972 Richard Nixon was President (Watergate was yet to happen); Godfather was Best Picture; the first female FBI agent was hired; the very first female was admitted to Dartmouth and the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, was introduced. So, a lot has happened since this store had made a sale.

As I said aside from the question of how they've managed to stay open all these years, I wanted to explore other aspects of this interesting news. The article claims that perhaps the store receives little business because the product is not needed anymore. Now, I haven't lived in Tokyo, but I've been there and I'm pretty sure I saw people using brooms. I know Gilbert, and Tokyo are very different places, but I have two brooms in my home, one for outdoor use and one for indoor. Also, not to forget, Home Depot and Wal-Mart seem to stock plenty of them. So, I'm pretty sure there is a market for brooms.

The larger question then becomes is the store not attracting customers because of the product or because of the lack of marketing? At the end of the day you could have the most amazingly useful product/service but if you're marketing it properly then you won't sell. Marketing of course means understanding your core customer segment and delivering your unique selling proposition to that segment as a means to maximize sales conversion. To me the story of the broom store reminds me that no matter how useful your product is, if you don't have the acumen to market the product to your customer you won't succeed. Even a retail store in one of the worlds largest metropolitan area.

What do you think? Why do you think this store has not had a customer since 1972?

Is it the product or the marketing? Or both, that drives sales.