The Best Time To Get Muji Is Against The Market Trend.

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.

The flagship store, known as the largest flagship store in mainland China, opened in December 12th last year. It was a news in the city. Sales on that day exceeded 2 million 150 thousand yuan, and customers queued up to enter the store. This grand occasion lasted for two or three weeks.

When H&M, UNIQLO and other fast fashion brands began to encounter bottlenecks in China, MUJI products from Japan achieved the best results in China last year.

In mid April of this year, the 2015 financial year performance report released by the Muji parent 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 to 47.2%. In terms of operating profit, the East Asian market doubled, reaching 17 billion 200 million yen, the first time it exceeded the 17 billion yen in the local market, of which China's contribution was very high.

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

In a reply to reporters' mail, Muji said that the East Asian 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 was back in 2005.

Nanjing West Road opened its first store until 2011, and there were only 38 stores in the country.

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.

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Besides the traditional hot products such as cosmetics, the position of food in Muji has also started to improve.

Statistics show that in January, China accounted for 4.8% of the sales of Muji in China, 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.

In addition to the restaurant, there are bookstores on the third floor and the main food area with snack snacks, sauces and beverages.

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

They 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.

In Muji, the slowdown in sales in the same store is due to the fact that with the increase in the number of shops, the sales growth of existing shops has been passivated. However, they believe that China's GDP and consumer spending 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."