Recently I read the article in BusinessWeek that the Japanese retail - Muji - is going to head to US in this fall. This article reminds me of the Ikea & Starbucks case we discussed before.
(Muji has lots of fans in Asia and Europe and is one of my favorite brands. They are selling furniture, stationery, clothes and housewares, all of them are simple, functional but original and possess post-industrial design factors. )
This retailer will be taking on heavyweight when coming to US: Ikea and Crate & Barrel in furniture, Gap in apparel, and Target in housewares. Their first 5,000-sq-ft store will be opened in middle town Manhattan and intend to target at 20~30 young consumers.
I think it will be another case of customer experience. Muji must be very careful designing the first "touch point" in US: The decoration & atmosphere, the story, point of differences- all of them must woo Americans as well as stick with their core value- simple, functional, less-is-more aesthetic. These all affect Muji's chance to win the territory in US.
Let's see how they manage this Asian Zen style brand and unique customer experience in the Western world.
Article link:http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2007/gb20070329_161669.htm?chan=search
Japanese official website: http://www.muji.net/
English version (I think they will have a new site after opening the store in NY): www.muji.net/eng/
Daphne
3 comments:
I agree that MUJI is going to have major competition from some of the established players in the U.S. market. The main question is whether they offer enough differentiation to set themselve apart from the other big players. Simply being "Asian" may not be enough. And how does one go about selling more of "less"?
Yes, definitely Muji will need to differentiate itself - that is, its more of "less", meaning, the less complicated of products, the better. Its distinctive style is "simplicity".
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