MUJI Is Not Trapped, Singing And Expanding All The Time.

In recent years, many fast fashion brands have suffered bottlenecks, and sales have declined.

But Japan's Muji does not look at this dilemma. Instead, it is singing all the time, and sales are rising.

In mid April of this year, the 2015 financial year performance report released by the Muji printing company's good planning company (March 2015 -2016 February) showed that the annual sales volume was 307 billion 500 million yen, an increase of 18%, of which the sales volume of the East Asian market reached 83 billion yen, up 47.2%; in terms of operating profit,

It has doubled to 17 billion 200 million yen, the first time to exceed 17 billion yen in the local market, of which China's contribution is very high.

According to sales figures, about 60% of the East Asia Division is contributed by the Chinese market.

MUJI Mail said that the East Asia Division's earnings could exceed Japan for the first time. Besides the low yen exchange rate, the decline in Chinese commodity prices and the increase in the number of shops were important reasons for pulling sales.

MUJI had opened its first store in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, in 2005. It did not have 38 stores in the country until 2011.

By the end of 2015, Muji had reached 160 stores in mainland China, and there were 21 stores in Shanghai.

In an interview with Japanese media, Matsuzaki Kyo, President of the good quality program, said that the consumption of Muji China is turning to the actual needs of daily life. The quality, function, design and price of Muji have been accepted by Chinese consumers.

The Chinese meaning of "Muji" in Japanese is "good commodity without name".

Although it has always pursued the purpose of not following the flow, Muji does not care about carving, simple, and environmentally-friendly commodity style. It is undoubtedly consistent with the current trend of consumption. For example, the paper used for packaging materials or labels is light brown because it omitted the bleaching process of pulp.

Patronage of Muji consumers is mostly young women.

In addition to traditional hot products such as clothes and cosmetics, the position of food in Muji has also started to improve.

Statistics show that in January, the sales of MUJI products in China accounted for 4.8%, which was two times that of 2015.

Now more than four months later, the flagship store of Huaihai middle road has already resumed its usual calm, but even on the weekdays, there are still many restaurants on the third floor.

Here are three kinds of packages and drinks, which are not cheap. A set of drinks, one meal with three dishes is 58 yuan, four dishes are 68 yuan, 5 dishes are 78 yuan.

However, simply counting the number of restaurants, the attendance rate is more than half.

Besides the restaurant, there are bookstores and bookstores on the third floor.

The main food area is sauces and beverages.

In the crowd going to the cashier, retail is much more frequent than the purchase of books.

MUJI said they are continuing to expand the scale of food.

After Japan's "3.11" earthquake, food imports could not be sold because of import restrictions. By changing the domestic origin of Japan or producing in China, Muji increased the types of food in China.

Compared with other commodities, hundreds of yuan, 58 yuan set, 9 yuan butter cookies and 18 yuan a bag of chocolate are easier to be consumed.

Price is an embarrassment for Muji in China.

"Cheap and reasonable" provides the same quality as department stores, but only sells 70% of the price of department stores. This is the clear positioning of Muji from its birth.

But in the Chinese market, Muji prices did not leave such an impression on the public. Even in August last year, the price of goods of about 260 categories, such as clothes sold in China, was down by an average of 20%.

In this regard, Muji said that it will continue to carry out "new pricing" activities in China in the future. However, the cost of tariffs and logistics now leads to the fact that the original price of goods sold in China is higher than that in Japan, which is indeed a fact.

From the four quarter of fiscal year 2015, the growth rate of Muji's sales in the same store in China has slowed down from 38.6% in the first quarter to 9.7% in the fourth quarter.

It is not known whether Chinese consumers go to Muji in pursuit of another trend or whether they really accept the simple way of life advocated by Muji.

Compared with hot clothing, cosmetics and food, sales of textile products for home use are weak.

However, Muji has high hopes and optimism for the Chinese market.

According to the plan, they will open 40 stores in China in the 2016 fiscal year (as of February 2017), and there will be 200 stores in China.

From the 2017 fiscal year (as of February 2018), the medium-term business plan is expected to open 40-50 a year.

In MUJI products, the same store sales growth slowed down because of

The increase in the number of stores has already been somewhat inactive in the growth of the sales volume of the existing shops. However, they believe that China's GDP and consumption purchase amount are still increasing, and the sales prospect of the Chinese market is still very optimistic.

MUJI said, "compared to our own plan for the same store sales growth in 2016, +8% will try to challenge +10% in the future."