Village Vanguard Headquarter Shop 20150606

Village Vanguard is a book store chain that is run by Village Vanguard Corporation in

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...

Aichi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,461,111 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The concept of the store is "A playful book store" (ja:遊べる本屋). Although it is a book store, it carries a wide variety of products other than books, such as CDs, DVDs, and SPICEs, which makes it close to being a

variety store A variety store (also five and dime (historic), pound shop, or dollar store) is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, auto parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, furniture, and a selection of groceries. It usually sel ...

History

Village Vanguard was founded by in 1986. The first Village Vanguard store opened in the Tenpaku ward of Nagoya.　 The store was named after

Village Vanguard The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jaz ...

, a jazz club located in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. This is because Kikuchi first planned on playing

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

in the bookstore, which actually never happened. Village Vanguard 2018

Stores

Village Vanguard has 358 shops in total all across Japan, with each store having a completely different layout. The layout of products is one of the biggest characteristics of this store; instead of making the layout simply by category, they locate their product based on the employee's creativity.

Lists

Books

Although Village Vanguard is distinct as a bookstore, their book sales only makes up for around 30% of their total sales. Unlike a majority of the chain book stores, their line up of books varies at every store, because the selection of books is curated by the manager.

Collaborations

Village Vanguard is known for collaborating with various properties and aspects of pop culture. This has included bands, companies, YouTubers, and more. The merchandise varies time to time, and they produce things such as clothing, key chains, towels to bowls, sandals etc.

SPICE

SPICE is a term used in Village Vanguard which stands for Select, Pop, Intelligence, Culture and Entertainment. It is used to refer to all the products except books, CDs and DVDs, things such as toys, clothes and accessories.

References

{{Authority control Bookstores of Japan Companies based in Nagoya Retail companies established in 1986 Japanese companies established in 1986