A porcupine-shaped paper clip holder, silicone oven mitts, organic denim, Jinnrise comics or a book on the art of Japanese joinery — these are a few things that UAE residents have developed a taste for, thanks to a group of innovative retailers from Japan with stores in the country.
While Daiso can be defined as the Japanese avatar of a dollar shop, its fans say it gives much more, scoring on innovation and price. Similarly, Kinokuniya has been a book lovers’ favourite in most locations where it has opened, impressing with its international bibliography and credited with enhancing the popularity of manga comics. The newly opened Muji in Dubai Mall is known for restraint in product design, bringing a sense of calm to the homes it decorates.
To a certain extent, the popularity of Japanese retailers is tied to the fact that they provide solutions to lifestyle conundrums of their first consumers — the Japanese.
“Daiso and Muji are both strikingly Japanese in their own way, but I would argue that Kinokuniya is more a sign of the modernisation and opening of Japan to the West,” William Amsden, a marketing and consumer insights consultant based in Tokyo, tells GN Focus.
Amsden says that while conspicuous consumption characterised the bubble era, post-war decades of 1980s and 1990s, things have moved towards frugality now.
“The burst of the economic bubble created a value shift in the opposite direction. Economic austerity forced a re-examination of values among consumers. Today, more and more Japanese consumers place higher value on simplicity, functionality, thrift and self-expression than upon status. This is evident in the popularity of brands including Muji, Uniqlo and MontBell, the outdoor retailer whose logo proclaims Function is Beauty,” says Amsden.
Going by the popularity of little things made in Japan, the rest of the world readily agrees. Daiso, with annual sales figures exceeding $3 billion (about Dh11 billion), and which opened its flagship store in Dubai Mall in March — its tenth in Dubai and the 20th in the UAE — is a case study of rapid growth.
“In the Middle East, the UAE contributes a substantial part of our GCC-wide business and we have witnessed a double-digit, like-for-like growth on previous year’s numbers. We are planning to open one additional store each in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah in 2013. We intend to roll out six to seven stores every year in different parts of the GCC,” says Jayant Ganwani, CEO, Lals Group, which operates the Middle East franchise in partnership with the Damas Group.
Amsden says that Daiso has differentiated itself from other 100-yen (about Dh3.7) shops through its overall procurement and product strategy. “While other chains stick to cheap, functional wares, Daiso customers flock to the shop to get outfitted with ultra-cute pencil cases, waste buckets and hundreds of other items. Rather than emphasising one-off sales of overstock or discontinued products to keep costs down, it relies primarily upon manufacturing in China to provide a stable product supply. This allowed it to develop its own portfolio of cute and trendy character products, which distances the chain from its competition,” he says.
Hirotake Yano, the president of Daiso, proudly shows off a Japanese business magazine Nikkei, where Daiso finds a place on a list of top businesses, along with McDonalds, Panasonic and Apple.
“This year we are expanding into Europe and we are talking to partners in the US to grow further,” he tells GN Focus. With an inventory of 80,000 items a year, Ganwani says it is far from any competition. Daiso not only controls design but also production and quality. “Others lack the ability to copy them, which puts Daiso in a position of a vacuum in its sector,” says Ganwani.
A quick look at what is popular in Japan will show that the Japanese display a voracious appetite for consuming quirky, cutesy designs. “Life in Japanese cities is loud, crowded and hectic. Daily commuter trains and buses are packed, and loud announcements add to the stress. Workspaces are small and cluttered with paper and PCs. Thus many Japanese want accessories that are sleek and simple so they are easier to carry while commuting. Simplicity in home furnishings is also desired to save space and to create an atmosphere of simple elegance. Simplicity can be a remedy for the stress of daily life,” says Amsden. >
Given this background it is no surprise that Muji is a success story. Praised for its poetic design on international blogs, the company credits its simple, innovative and elegant products to the Japanese philosophy of kanketsu, the concept of bringing a sense of calm into everyday life.
The first Muji store in the UAE opened this February in Dubai as part of a franchise agreement between M.H. Alshaya and Ryohin Keikaku, Muji’s parent company, with a range of 3,000 products including clothing, furniture, stationery, health and beauty, storage, kitchen and dining as well as travel and bedding.
“When Muji was established during the 1980s, its no-brand approach was a novelty in brand-centric Japan. It started out as a niche brand, but gradually became mainstream due to the shift in consumer values. Muji’s timing was perfect given economic and social trends after 1990. It’s a classic success story, starting by targeting a specific market niche, and growing from there,” says Amsden.
While Muji and Daiso hark back to simpler times, Kinokuniya is a synthesis of the new and the old. Reviewed across Kuala Lumpur, New York, Tokyo and Sydney with five stars almost every time, the bookstore has a tendency to overshadow any competition it may have. That it has a bigger comics section than most stores in today’s animation-happy world may explain some of the rush. Staying true to its roots, it offers a substantial selection of Japanese books, even translated ones.
Amsden tells us, “Kinokuniya was originally a coal and lumber dealer in Tokyo, but transformed itself into a bookstore after the great earthquake in the 1920s and again rose from the ashes after it was destroyed in an air raid in 1945. In this way, Kinokuniya symbolises the changes Japan went through during its modernisation, and later the rebuilding after the Second World War. Within Japan, the store has long offered a wide range of Japanese and international publications, so it is both a result and symbol of Japan’s openness and westernisation in the 20th century. Outside Japan, Kinokuniya has emphasised sales of manga and other Japanese publications, so overseas customers obviously get more of a Japanese feeling at their stores.” n
