Why Can MUJI Sing All The Way And Follow The Trend?

MUJI (Muji) has been established in 1980s for 38 years. From Japan to the world, MUJI has been singing all over the world, developing 700 stores and more than 7000 products worldwide, becoming the benchmark of global retailing.

Retail business is changing. Why can MUJI always control the trend and follow the trend?

First, cheap reason.

The birth of the 1. concept: a deep understanding of customer needs.

MUJI's business philosophy is not a self righteous idea, but a deep understanding of customer needs rooted in the economic and social development of Japan.

Japan's economy has gone through the "high growth" stage from 1956 to 1973. By 1973, the economy declined for the first time, and began to evolve into the era of "mature consumption".

At that time, the three giants of the circulation industry took their respective strategies to deal with the decline in sales.

But unfortunately, none of them have been successful.

MUJI was then part of the Xi you group. One of the characteristics of Xi You's commodity development is its high regard for customers. Muji has also inherited this excellent tradition of actively listening to customers' voices and opinions, and formed its own observation and discovery on this basis, which also brought important enlightenment to the development of MUJI products.

Combined with the observation of the three giants in the development of PB products (private brand goods or middleman brand goods), it has prompted the Muji to jump out of the conventional way of thinking, and put forward its own idea, "cheap reason", which provides customers with the same quality goods with the department store at a low price of 30%, thus laying the foundation for the development of MUJI products.

2. how can we achieve a reasonable price?

As for how to achieve "reasonable and cheap", we found three directions in the development of specific commodities:

First, replace raw materials.

Strictly select raw materials, pay attention to material essence rather than appearance.

For example, when the pasta is put into the pot, some of them will be bent into U type, but this will not affect the food and tasty. So we developed U macaroni.

Second, review the process.

Japan's dry letinous edodes will be screened, and then packaged according to large, medium and small packages. Incomplete breakage of letinous edodes will be eliminated.

But for customers, letinous edodes's mouth is a taste.

So we mix large, medium and small letinous edodes, including broken letinous edodes, so that the cost and cost of raw materials and production will be greatly reduced, and can be sold to customers at a preferential price.

Third, simplify packaging.

We have a paper towel bag for replacement, because no matter how beautiful the box is, but actually the paper towel is used, we have developed a replacement paper towel bag.

By simplifying the packaging, the cost is reduced and the price is reduced.

Our shirts are not only ironed and dyed, nor even packaged, so that we can touch the most essential comfort and wear them very warm at the same time.

In this way, through the strict selection of materials to simplify the process, and then to simplify the packaging, these three actions can be used to provide high-quality products to customers at a more favorable price.

The concept of Muji in commodity development is based on the fact that "manufacturing can only see the essence of goods", so as to give prominence to the characteristics and functions of the essence of commodities, and then to create goods that can only see the essence.

In the era of high economic growth, we may pay more attention to the appearance of packaging, but with the progress and development of the times, people's consumption concept will become more mature and more willing to pay attention to the essence of commodities.

The biggest difference and advantage of Muji and other enterprises lies in the fact that "the vision is moving forward and the footsteps are backward". Our eyes are always watching the front of the era, and our footsteps have been returning to the essence of commodities.

3. idea evolution: reasonable cheap + consumer perspective

Since the establishment of Muji 79 years ago, we have been sticking to our core philosophy, and have been exploring and deepening our core concept continuously, making it constantly evolve and develop to meet the needs of customers.

MUJI has been undergoing constant evolution in the process of commodity development. Every seven to eight years, there will be a stage of growth.

But in the process of evolution, the core concept of Muji has never changed. We always insist on guaranteeing quality while providing customers with reasonable low prices.

"Reasonable price + consumer perspective" is the way of evolution of Muji product concept and market demand.

Two, growth and setbacks

1. growth and decline

MUJI products opened in 1983 with an area of only 33 Ping (about 100 square meters), and only 200 items of goods. Qingshan 1 shop opened its first month sales target in the first month, and good sales performance continued.

It can be said that such a performance confirms that the concept of MUJI products was very consistent with customer demand.

But Muji has only 24 billion 500 million yen in 90 years of sales, and its regular interest is 100 million yen. However, by 99 years, the profit has reached 13 billion 600 million yen.

It can be said that from 90 to 99 years of ten years, Muji has experienced a smooth growth period.

The number of shops, types of goods are increasing, and the distance from customers is getting closer. Customers are also willing to buy more products in Muji.

But in 2000, the first time we encountered a decline in profits, and even to 2001, a sharp increase in the decline.

In January of that year, the former president resigned and resigned because of his declining performance. I served as president of Muji in such a predicament.

MUJI products fell sharply and fell into a state of loss. The media made a lot of reports. Once a reporter told me, "no one in Japan has ever regained growth after such a sharp decline in performance. Please cheer up!"

2. reasons for introspection

With this setback, Muji has begun to reflect on the causes of setbacks, especially the internal reasons:

First of all, rapid expansion and sustained growth of performance bring pride and complacency and think that "Muji can do this" and lose sense of crisis.

Secondly, blindly expanding the variety and quantity of goods, resulting in the weakening of the brand, thinning the concept of "cheap reason" and making the Muji have a radical psychological risk.

In order to sell more products, began to use very simple and rude attitude and method to constantly develop goods, and away the distance from customers.

This is the main reason for our setbacks.

The biggest feature of SPA mode (private brand retailer) is high risk and high return, which means Muji will bear a lot of inventory pressure.

Because of the decline in the company's performance, Muji has been out of fashion in the logistics center of Niigata in the past quarter, and its total value is more than 10 billion yen at the selling price.

If these stocks continue to backlog in warehouses, commodity reform will not be possible.

So we were determined to burn up all the bad stocks.

There are also some major accidents in the quality of products, as well as some unidentified substances in food.

This series of problems has prompted MUJI products to start introspection, with the rapid expansion of the big business disease, and began to promote the reform within the enterprise. We decided that the person responsible for making the goods must follow the factory to confirm whether the quality of the products they made was clear, and at the same time, through the customer's complaints, we should carry out the reform and quality management of the products.

From the 01 year of the company's performance to the bottom, I was in charge of being the president of Muji, and during the 07 years when I resigned from the presidents, Muji's performance had a remarkable recovery.

The biggest contribution to this recovery is the reform of commodity development. The idea we have summed up is "evolution and implementation":

"Evolution" mainly refers to the process design of making goods.

"Execution" is a mechanism that must be thoroughly implemented to achieve results.

Three, the road of commodity development

1. "good" product philosophy

The idea of "reason to be cheap" was put forward by the birth of imprinted goods. In the next 10 years, we gradually put forward a series of gradual evolution ideas, such as "simplicity", "function", "economic rationality" and so on.

We realize that the concept of non - Indo - good products should be constantly evolving with the changes of the times and keep pace with the times to close to the present life.

"This is good" rather than "the best" is the product philosophy of Muji.

MUJI wanted to express the idea that the idea of "the best" will highlight people's strong preferences and preferences -- I don't want anything else, I want this!

But we do not want Muji customers to have such a proposition to buy our products. We do not want to follow our customers' propositions to produce our products. We hope that customers will buy our products with rational thinking like this.

The word "most" carries some self-concept and incongruity in it, while the word "jiu" contains restraint, concession and rational emotion, so we hope to provide "good" products to customers and customers to buy with such an idea.

At the same time, we also eliminate some dissatisfaction and regret when customers choose "such good" products by improving the quality of "such good" products.

We have a low cost concept of "low cost, smart price".

What we advocate is "cheap reason". If you are simply cheap, this empty stuff can not satisfy the customers. This requires a very mature and very rich material and production process to support our products, so that customers can get satisfaction from very simple products.

2. development concept of "empty container"

In the development of commodities, our idea is that "MUJI products are like empty containers. It is precisely because pure and pure white can accommodate all people's ideas that they can create a sense of loyalty and freedom."

This picture shows the concept of "empty container" very much. The goods developed by Muji are equivalent to an empty container, which can accommodate all values, such as rationality, simplicity, low price, ecology and reason.

It's not that we give such values, but that it can accommodate all values and let customers decide what their values are.

The products we produce can correspond to the values of all people and can be accepted by all. This is also the concept of commodity development that we have consistently adhered to.

3., design should not be too advanced.

We have won a very authoritative award in Germany, the most authoritative IF Design Award in the design industry.

There were two enterprises that won 4 awards, one is Apple Corp, the other is Panasonic Corp, and Muji has surpassed these two enterprises, and we have won 5 awards.

The 5 winning items are telephone, shredder and combination rack, DVD player and CVD player.

When the telephone was designed at the time, an old gentleman in the company said that this phone should sell well, but in fact, even though this phone was awarded the gold prize in design, its sales volume was very bleak, basically it did not sell much.

The development of MUJI products has always been on the front end of fashion. But when we produced this kind of telephone, customers had not yet reached the age of mobile phone popularization, and people had more additional functions in pursuit of telephones.

So although this phone is very good in terms of design, it is out of the demand of the customers at that time.

From this, we can reflect that after that, the design of commodities can not be too advanced. Six months ahead or one year is appropriate, and products can be sold.

But if we go too far, customers' needs and our ideas can not be synchronized, but the goods will not sell.

This is a lesson we learned.

4. the unique way of commodity development

In the past, many of the development capabilities of MUJI products depended on manpower. The main problem was that each employee had different personal qualifications, abilities, dynamism and enthusiasm. Such differences reflected that the quality of commodities was different from that of commodity development.

So we are determined to set up a mechanism to build a road of commodity development with MUJI products, so that everyone can do well in the development of commodities and participate in the development of commodities.

The prerequisite for the development of MUJI products is the market survey, which is to accurately grasp the needs of customers. There are nine ways to collect information when Muji is doing market research. This is the nine inspiration for our commodity development:

Collecting market information through exhibitions and exhibitions.

Social media

Such as newspapers, magazines, TV, media and so on.

Self needs

If goods are developed, what do I want to do?

I can think based on my daily needs. What may I lack in my life?

What should I improve?

What will help me?

Analysis of customers

Watch others or analyze information about marketing from the perspective of customer psychology and daily life.

Competitor research

By observing the competitors' products, we will investigate and grasp the information about the situation, completeness, price, package design and so on.

MUJI's internal mechanism ensures that all the information gathered is returned to every Saturday.

Cooperation between partners

That is, our manufacturers and manufacturers.

It is to visit the scene of the production of goods and then get the information of the industry.

The Institute of life and good products

This is an organization set up inside the company to let customers listen to customers' opinions on our website.

The agency will also take hundreds of photos of customers' living environment and find out the potential needs of customers from photos.

Customer room

Its functions are similar to domestic complaints and consulting centers. Customer rooms receive complaints or consulting information from customers 170 thousand times a year. We will also improve and develop products based on these information.

Customers will directly reflect their thoughts through the shops, telephone or mail to the customer room. The customer room is responsible for sorting out all the customers' opinions and ideas, and once a week, they reflect these good statistics to senior managers.

If there is an emergency, for example, there is a needle in the merchandise, or more than 3 defective products appear in the same commodity, an emergency meeting of cadres will be held directly on Tuesday to remove the bad commodities.

Retail shop

The Muji shop is known as the "customer view table" tool. The clerk writes the suggestions and ideas put forward by the customer in this form, and then delivers the information to the superior.

Inspired by the above 9 products, we have developed many popular products.

Case 1: comfortable sofa

Comfortable sofa, Muji first sale, this product is derived from the idea put forward by our customers. He hopes to have a tool that can tilt the body on TV, and can fully fit the body, a bit like a big pillow.

At that time, we were very curious to hear this idea, and began to try to make such a tool.

At that time, there were two kinds of fabrics to be selected. Finally, the fabric with higher shrinkage was chosen, so that the body curve of people sitting on the table could be completely fitted.

At that time, the appearance of this commodity was very good, and just this comfortable sofa sold 20 billion yen sales.

Case 2:LED portable lamp

LED portable lamp is also a very popular hot commodity today. It can provide illumination in a dark environment, and can also develop different uses according to its needs.

Case 3: China bench

The product developed by Muji is inspired by Chinese benches.

We feel very interesting after seeing this Chinese bench. What will become of the concept and design of the Muji after connecting this bench?

So we developed such a commodity.

There are Chinese white porcelain, India Curry Pot, four lattice notebook, etc. after capturing these inspirations, how do we make the product?

As a matter of fact, Muji is planning for new products 2 to 3 years ahead of schedule. We take Muji concept as the origin of commodity development, and gather together three departments within the company: commodity department, enterprise design department, commodity selection and development (responsible person).

On Tuesday, meetings of customer suggestions and commodity ideas are held; Wednesday, design meetings; Friday, advisory committee meetings.

In general, we first convene a discussion meeting, then make assumptions, and finally decide the direction of product development.

After the specific direction of commodity development is determined, the next step is to set the basic parameters of commodities in detail.

For example, size, fabric material, design and so on, and then factory proofing, first make a sample actually used.

Because we find that if we don't need to make a product, we can't find any problems.

In the first half of the year, we will have employees and customers trying this item continuously, testing the usage experience very specifically and knowing what the product is like.

In the production process, our production department and quality assurance department will follow up and complete the quality control.

In the first 8 months before the actual production of goods, we have a discussion process. There will be second commodity seminars in the first 7 months before the launch. There will be a seminar on commodity strategy in the first half of the sale, and then the last meeting of the Advisory Committee will be held 5 months before the sale.

This is equivalent to the last hurdle of commodity development. If the Advisory Committee disagrees, the commodity will not be available. The Advisory Committee has the final say.

Four, the idea evolution starts again:

WORLD MUJI and FOUNDMUJI

When the ideas put forward in the first ten years are no longer able to meet the needs of contemporary customers, we further upgrade the concept and put forward the concept of "WORLD MUJI" and "FOUND MUJI".

At the same time, we also put forward the brand philosophy of Muji, not "the best" but "good like this", and "high quality basic commodities", "reasonable prices", "creative omission", "vegetarian" and so on.

I mainly introduce the two latest ideas developed by Muji in the new era: FOUND MUJI and WORLD MUJI.

The idea of FOUND MUJI is that we will fly to all parts of the world, for example, somewhere far away from Japan, there are objects that local residents love and use for a long time. We would like to dig out these good local things, then give it to Muji design, adapt to modern life, and then spread to the whole world.

What is the specific concept of WORLD MUJI?

We are pondering the question: what is the impression of MUJI products produced in Japan? What about the impression of MUJI products in Germany and Britain?

Therefore, we have expanded our horizons to the global scope, and from the different regions and cultures of the world, we have been trying to figure out what forms of MUJI products should appear in order to find new possibilities for MUJI products, and thus usher in a new era of global divergent thinking.

We hope that through such an action, the concept of Muji will be passed on to the people of the world, and our MUJI will be passed around the world to convey our ideals.

We will work with designers from all over the world who are contemporary and authoritative to provide the best products, but we will not tell you the names of designers, because the price involved will double 5 times.

Five, choice: what does Muji do?

No give up, no gain.

MUJI has always insisted on things that will never be done in the development of commodities. The principle of choice is Muji's basic concepts and principles of commodity development.

No brand name on goods.

Some customers have once reflected that if LOGO is added to the products, will it sell better?

But we feel that if a label is attached, the customer may buy goods from my LOGO. It is not because my goods are well designed that they will buy our products, so we refuse to label the products.

No additional function

Sold only for MUJI products.

Not sold elsewhere for MUJI products.

Products do not use bright colors.

Some customers feel that the quality of MUJI products is very good, and the colors are also made of the raw materials or fabrics.

But the production of children or baby products can add some brighter colors, such as pink, which can make children more like.

We think this proposal is very good, but it will go against the concept and original intention of the development of MUJI products, so we will not do it.

Not over packaged products

Do not employ celebrities to advertise.

MUJI will not employ celebrities to advertise. Although the turnover of celebrities will increase in a short time, we do not want our products to sell more because of external factors. What we want more is to rely on the excellent function and quality of our products to get customers' love.

We want customers to get the goods themselves, not the additional ones.

Do not publicize the assistance of famous designers.

Selling goods only in areas where daily equipment, product selection and display can be managed.

Do not reduce price as a tool to attract customers.

Try to avoid doing anything irrelevant to customer reception at the store.

Do not sell 2DK * or 3DK Premium Apartment House, apartments can not be used daily goods.

Note notes: DK (dining kitchen refers to a kitchen and restaurant), 2DK refers to the kitchen and dining room with combined toilets and bathroom houses.

3DK has three rooms (which can be used as bedrooms, study rooms and living rooms) and a living room with a pot top. Unlike China, Japanese kitchens are often connected with dining rooms that are also living rooms, with toilets and bathrooms.

Not selecting target customers from demographic level

A branch store that does not meet the branch store standard will not exceed the company's ability to develop goods.

MUJI products hope to keep injecting fresh blood into the development of commodities. We have a thought that the future of commodities is not necessarily on the extended line now. Therefore, we must constantly diverge our minds and create new ideas and try new commodity development. This is also our most basic gesture.

The above is my sharing today, thank you!