Japanese Stores Operating In China Are Different.

UNIQLO and Muji are speeding up the opening of new stores in China. However, contrary to this trend, Honeys, the largest number of shops in China, has stopped the expansion plan of new stores. Other medium-sized stores are also cautious about the expansion of their business scale. Part of the reason is that China's economic growth has slowed down, and the prevailing trend of Japanese brands has subsided. It is understood that the long term stores that have opened new stores overseas, continue to regard China as the most potential market and seek opportunities for new stores.

UNIQLO will also open new stores in Australia, Germany and other countries in the current fiscal year (July 2013 ~2014 August). By the end of the fiscal year, there will be about 866 stores in Japan (including franchised stores) and 629 overseas. In recent years, UNIQLO has maintained a net growth rate of 10 stores a year in Japan, and the growth of overseas stores is 150 to 200 per year. In this fiscal year, China has added 80 stores to China, and the number of stores is expected to exceed 300. China has become the premier market for UNIQLO to open overseas stores.

MUJI also opened flagship stores in Shanghai and Beijing in 2013, and expanded the scale of new stores. In terms of location, past shops were selected for over 2 floors of commercial facilities, but this year, some shops are adjacent to other global brands in the selection of urban storefronts. At the end of 2 in 2014, Muji had 385 stores in Japan and 256 overseas. In the current fiscal year (end of December 2013), there were 35 shops in China, with a total of 100 stores. It is estimated that by 2017, the number of Muji overseas shops will exceed that of Japan.

　　 Uniqlo And MUJI The common point is to establish Brand Identity, which can be widely used in Japan and globally. Consumers can understand the definition of "Made for All" and "Lifewear" in UNIQLO through commodities and shops. MUJI has been developed as a brand philosophy through simple and environment-friendly development philosophy by eliminating unnecessary steps in the production process.

In contrast to the expansion trend of the above stores, a number of Japanese stores have stopped planning new stores and increasing their number of stores. Taking Honeys as an example, as of 2013, although the rate of net increase of 100 stores has been expanding every year, it has failed to prevent sales of existing stores from falling. Statistics from June 2013 to February 2014 showed that the sales of Honeys already decreased by 22.2% compared with the same period last year, and the sales volume of the whole store decreased by 8.5% compared with that of the previous year. The sale of the department stores in the main areas became the norm, while the price of the people close to the company was a selling point of the company, but its advantage was not achieved. Honeys said that this situation has lasted for nearly two years. If it takes 3 years to get out of the difficult situation, there will still be 1 years to wait. Honeys now has 637 stores (statistics up to the end of 11 2013, including 46 franchised stores). From the whole year, it is estimated that the number of new stores will be reduced by 60, or around 120, plus 45 stores. The total number of shops at the end of the year is expected to be 604.

In addition to some brands, Japanese specialty stores The development of China is facing adversity. However, if the company wants to succeed overseas, the Chinese market can not be avoided. At the end of last year, Japan's research group conducted a questionnaire survey of 30 stores with sales of more than 10 billion yen. The results show that in the 26 enterprises that have opened up overseas, the number of shops in China accounts for 66% of the total number of overseas stores, and many enterprises will continue to regard China as an important market for opening stores. In addition, 17 of the 20 enterprises that have opened stores in China say they will continue to increase the number of shops in China in the future. In fact, both China and Japan, including the global market, must have brand power and original system to win the business war.