The progress of High Economic Growth (1955-73) transformed Japan from defeated ruins to a wealthy, modern and Western-looking society, accompanied by changes in buying and consumption habits of everyday necessities. These changes were mediated by a new retail format, incorporating the ideas of selfservice and chain store networks. Before the Second World War, most small-and medium-sized retailers did not have enough knowledge and business resources to create a new retail format that could undertake the mass marketing matched with mass production since developed by modern manufacturers; therefore, the networks of retail stores had to be developed as keiretsu stores organised by manufacturers themselves (see chapters 1 – 3 ). In contrast, after the War some independent retailers gained the ability by their own efforts to develop nationwide store networks with self-service systems.