MUJI'S Chinese Imprint

In the third years after the return to the Chinese market, the expansion of Muji in the Chinese market suddenly entered the era of "hurricane rush".

Following the opening of the 889 new store in Shanghai in April 30th, it is only a month after the opening of the new store in Qingdao. The eighteenth shops that are not printed in China are about to open in Beijing.

According to the plan to ban Kimi Masaki, President of the Ministry of Commerce, the number of shops that will not be printed in China will reach 30 by the end of this year, and will reach 100 by the end of 2013.

In just five or six years, Muji, which is not known for its "fast", will have to complete the leap from the first store to the 100th store.

This radical expansion strategy undoubtedly shows that Muji has full confidence in China's increasingly mature consumer market.

The Chinese market does offer the possibility of rapid growth compared with the local market and the European market with increasing market capacity.

The sales record of the $430 thousand single shop opened on the day of Li Xing store opened in Hangzhou is a strong proof of the purchasing power of Chinese consumers.

MUJI is a brand that is highly related to the maturity of local consumption.

Some consumer experts even consider the market acceptance of Muji as a sign of maturity of consumers in a region, because only when the consumption sophistication is high enough, people will more agree with the quality and style of Muji's return to innocence.

Then, how can China's rapid growth and rapid expansion in the Chinese market, and how does the fast growing Chinese market bring the unique brand of "no brand" brand?

Chinese Context

Thirty years ago, Japanese society, as the material became more and more abundant, consumption demand was gradually stratified.

At that time, Japanese enterprises were divided into two categories: one is the pursuit of low price, the other is the pursuit of unique brand and design, and embody their own personality.

In 1980, Muji appeared as a "anti trend" attitude. While guaranteeing high quality, it only provided "essential design", giving the responsibility of giving product individuality to consumers.

For a time, Japan has received great repercussions and has become a topic of discussion. It enjoyed ten years of rapid growth in the 90s of last century.

Thirty years ago, Japan was similar to the current China, but the consumption context without printing in China is different after all.

For a long time, the price performance ratio is the dominant factor for Chinese consumers to make purchase decisions. The recognition and consumption of high-end luxury goods are only gradually formed in the past ten years.

The consumer psychology of the public is still divided into two modes, or the pursuit of luxury goods marked by LV, GUCCI and other brands to show off their satisfaction, or the pursuit of cost-effective products. This is a market of "Shanzhai" products.

This background makes it impossible for the Muji to enter the Chinese market to escape the identity of minority brands.

In this regard, Muji's competition strategy is that in the face of 10 consumers, most enterprises are trying to make everyone like it, and the idea of Muji is that only one of 10 people likes it.

At the same time, it keeps enriching its products, including clothing, groceries, food, cosmetics and furniture.

Small toothpicks, big to houses, develop into a complete life form made up of more than 5000 commodities. This strategy makes it a mass consumer brand with 333 stores on the ground.

In fact, due to the absolute number of the population in other countries, it is not enough to say that one of the 10 people likes it, even if only one of the 100 people becomes a Muji fan.

Because it belongs to the oriental culture circle, Muji has a natural cultural proximity to Chinese consumers.

Chinese consumers' yearning for quality life and the recognition of their spiritual value have made China's fans win fast.

And the most important concern of Muji in China is to let more Chinese consumers understand and enjoy Muji as soon as possible.

To this end, the Japanese company, "never promoting itself", is also willing to take the form of speeches and exhibitions in China, so that consumers can contact the products intuitively.

The 15 day exhibition in the Mixc, Hangzhou, is the third exhibition after Japan's Chi Po and Italy Milan.

Sales feedback and information collected through exhibitions will become the basis for Muji's targeted production in the Chinese market, providing the key to opening up more local consumers' hearts without Muji.

However, even Muji fans will complain that the price of Muji is too high.

The price of a pair of right angle socks is between fifty yuan and thirty yuan, not to mention other daily necessities.

This Japanese life

Price factors make it difficult to popularized the existing consumer groups that are not printed in China.

Liu Chen, deputy director of Suzhou printing shop, told the reporter that the shopping group of Muji shop in Suzhou Industrial Park is either a resident near the park or working in the park.

Most of them are thirty or forty years old. Besides buying small objects such as clothing and groceries, they will move home furniture such as beds, tables, chairs, sofa and so on.

Suzhou Industrial Park is a "rich area" in Suzhou's real estate projects. It can be defined as the middle class from the level of income.

Matsuzaki Kyo is the chairman of Muji in Singapore, Thailand, Hongkong and Mainland China.

When the reporter asked whether he wanted to make brand reengineering in China, he created a "high end" brand in the Chinese market, and he denied it quickly and thoroughly.

He said, "there is no such plan at all. My job now is to strengthen logistics and try to make more people buy cheaper."

Kimi Masaki admits that price is indeed an obstacle to China, but he thinks the price problem is only temporary.

Once logistics and resource circulation mechanisms are established, Chinese consumers will be able to buy MUJI products relatively cheaply.

MUJI is also making substantial efforts to reduce prices.

For example, there are two fixed discount seasons each year after summer and winter.

In order to better control inventory and adapt to the buying habits of Chinese consumers, it is estimated that the discount season will increase to four times a year.

In the product renewal, ensure that every quarter has new products.

Take clothing as an example, retain classic money, eliminate unsalable funds, and carry out "visual reform" for stock.

China Channel

In fact, the path of overseas expansion of Muji has been uneven.

In 1991, Muji built its first overseas store in London, and opened four stores in France in 1999. But by 2001, Muji's overseas operations were all at a loss.

Previously, the goal of Muji was to open 50 stores in Europe, and then had to turn the strategy into a profitable one.

The road without printing in China is not smooth sailing. It once withdrew from the mainland market with its parent company Xi You supermarket, even in Hongkong.

It was not until 2008 that Muji began to reenter the mainland market with the Shanghai Nanjing Road store as its starting point.

As the right-hand man of President Kimi Masaki, Matsuzaki Kyo played an important role in the opening process of Chinese shops.

He has many years of experience in the Ministry of law, and can read Chinese contract books. He is a good negotiant and negotiant.

The first overseas shop not printed in London was signed by him to sign various legal documents.

He is energetic and lives in the "cloud" life. He travels abroad more than 200 days a year and explores a set of unique experience.

After entering the mainland market again, well prepared Muji has not only adopted the way of direct store operation, but also adjusted substantially according to China's consumption environment.

For example, there is a sharp contrast to the image of the small shops on the subway, which are not printed on the Japanese mainland. Most of the shops that are not printed in China are located in the new high-end shopping areas of the second tier cities in China, such as Shanghai's Zhengda Plaza and Nanjing Road store, Beijing's Huamao center and Xidan great joy City, Hangzhou's Lixing Plaza, etc., and the shop area is often 10 times the Japanese store.

At the opening address, the shopping center that Song Qi chose to enter is often just put into use and is in the stage of inviting business.

Whether it is Huamao Center store, Suzhou Industrial Park store or Hangzhou the Mixc store, this is the case.

His principles are: do not choose the most expensive section on the first floor, while avoiding the location of each floor facing elevators.

These are the bargaining chips that he negotiated and lowered the rent.

Matsuzaki Kyo said, "our shop speed is supported by sales figures."

This can be seen from the distribution of his workload.

At present, in his work, China's mainland market accounts for 60%, while Hongkong accounts for 20% and Singapore 15%.

Kimi Masaki's request for him is to increase his workload in China to 70%-90%, which means that the future Chinese mainland market will become the absolute focus of his work.

MUJI has set up 25 standards for opening shops, including population in the region, the flow of people at the station, the consumption index in the region, etc.

According to these standards, more than 90% of the shops invested can meet the original plan.

However, on the basis of the application of these general standards, Japan's local and overseas markets have also been formed.

For example, the shops in Japan often have only about 90 square meters at the beginning, and then they will increase the area with the market demand and slowly reach 660 square meters. In the Chinese market, Muji is more concerned with the operation and operation of the "standardized way", and the shop area is between 700-800 square meters.

Standardization is not only the area, but also the unity of store display and design.

At present, the design of all the shops in China is controlled by Chen Li Shi of the Japanese headquarters, following the basic principles of color ranging from shallow to deep, from small to large, triangular form, and symmetrical method, and finally to show "concise and rich" effect.

Standardized operation will help Muji reduce operation and management costs.

In 2001, with the sharp decline in sales, muimo set up the 30% committee to increase the profit margin of the shop, reducing the proportion of channel operating costs to total sales to 30%.

Since then, a large number of part-time employees have been engaged in the hiring of non overseas stores. At present, there is no standardized shop in China. There are only five or six full-time employees and the rest are part-time employees.

Employing part-time employees is not just to control operating costs.

Part time employees are often fans of Muji product design. Most of them are going to university, offering three to four days of work per week.

For them, part-time job in Muji has gone beyond the scope of work study, and more comes from curiosity and interest.

The product design value advocated by Muji, such as "so good" and "original", has been maximized in the process of "fans buying" and "fans selling".

The MUJI products that we see in China today and attach importance to product development and product design are the result of its continuous evolution.

From 2000 to 2001, Muji suffered a huge business crisis, and profits fell sharply, leading to the resignation of President You He and Matsui Chusan's fate.

The external cause of the crisis is the competition from cheap homogeneous products. Some competitors, such as UNIQLO, 100 billion yuan, Yamada electric motor and so on, have begun to rise; and the internal reason is that the rapid expansion of ten years has brought about common defects of large enterprises, such as poor quality, frequent product quality, and insufficient product types to support more than 3000 square meters of shops.

In 2000, the stock of Muji was as high as 5 billion 500 million yen, and it had become a heavily indebted enterprise and had to deal with inventory in a burned out manner.

In 2001, he entered the Muji product. He focused on product design and made great efforts in product quality.

Original research has updated the concept of products, and made clear two directions of World MUJI and Found MUJI.

World MUJI refers to the pformation products of world-famous designers. Found MUJI regards the whole world as a raw material bank, and discovers some materials, some design concepts, and then adjusts them to the Muji flavor of the product development department.

The key word of Found MUJI is "discovery".

The idea of Muji has sprouted since 1987, and its connotation has been further enriched since its accession.

The original principle is that when designing and developing products, we should fully realize the relationship between material and environment, human behavior and material.

After the original research and development, it has increased the producer and production background, and the relevance between material and life.

For example, since last year, Muji product developers have been walking in Hangzhou and Shaoxing and found a pink plastic chair with elephant designs.

They thought it was a product of very good shape, so they decided to use it as a prototype for product development, remove colors and patterns, change materials into branches, and finally make a plucent chair.

In the recently concluded "Ruyi 2010 China Fashion Forum", Kimi Masaki revealed that he is going to have in-depth exchanges with Chinese local designers to ponder on what good commodities are and what good life is.

In the third world tour held in Hangzhou, Muji announced the launch of cooperation with Chinese local designers. The first group of collaborators included artist Ai Weiwei, musician Liu Suola, architect Zhang Yonghe and Wang Shu, and graphic designer Liu Zhi Zhi, who presented their environmental protection bags at the exhibition.

This is the starting point of the localization design of Muji, and also the inheritance of tradition. It invites Japanese household designers to launch product design. Because there is no designer signature, the public can only guess according to the style of designers in one continuous line. It is both a topic and a game.

Standardized shop form not only refers to the area, but also means the unity of store display.

At present, the design of all the shops in China is controlled by Chen Li Shi of the Japanese headquarters, following the basic principles of color ranging from shallow to deep, from small to large, triangular form, left and right symmetry.

In order to show the effect of "simplicity and richness", there are also some knack.

Liu Chen, deputy manager of Suzhou shop without Muji, said: "Muji will be" repeated ", this method is rarely used by other brands.

For example, our PP box is very typical, sometimes a whole wall is a pparent PP box, giving people a full feeling. "

This display technique has also been extended to the Hangzhou tour with the theme of "Muji".

The walls of the exhibition hall are all enclosed in a pparent PP box. With the pure white light, there is a sense of future in the distance.