Ricoh announced on Friday that Ricoh Imaging Square Osaka will be moving to a new location in the OMM building near Tenmabashi station. As far as I know, Ricoh has three such locations in Japan - two in Tokyo and one in Osaka.
There will be four sections:
- Showroom - allowing visitors to get their hands on each of the products
- Photo Salon - a space for the photo school events and seminars
- Gallery - Twice the size of the previous Osaka space
- Service Counter
The images shown look like a big upgrade over the existing showrooms.
I don't know Osaka very well, but the press release says thet the new location has more traffic than the previous one. Perhaps someone with local knowledge could comment on that.
Other details are:
- Opening Date: September 9
- Opening Hours 10:30-18:30, every day except Tuesdays (the old one was closed on Sundays, apparently)
- Address: 〒540-6591 Osaka, Chuo-ku, Otemachi 1-7-31, OMM Building 1F
- Access: Tenmabashi Station on the subway or Keihan Line allows direct access into the B2F of the OMM Building
I think this is a very good improvement. It looks a lot smarter than the ones in Tokyo from the renders. I don't know how many members pass through Osaka, but it could be worth a visit. I hope that the Tokyo sites get a similar make-over, however, from my point of view the current Shinjuku location is very convenient, being on my commute home, so I'd rather they didn't relocate it.
The other thing that strikes me is that this would seem like a very strange investment to give the green light to if Ricoh was really considering backing away from consumer camera sales. Ricoh has also revamped some of their online store pages, so I think they are pushing direct sales a bit more.