Lanny’s Blog mentioned that one of Asia’s largest retail stores: Muji, is coming to Toronto. Muji is an incredibly successful name in many Asian countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong, and many people might assume that Muji will also be successful in Toronto due to the large Asian population. Before jumping to such a rash conclusion, it may be wise to examine some of the factors that might affect Muji’s sales.

While operations is such a key factor in the delivery of a product, and Muji (who keeps its manufacturers private) for Canada will probably take more Days of Inventory than the Asian stores which are more likely to be closer to the manufacturers. That being said, Muji are an established company and minimizing costs should not be a problem given they almost do not advertise (2% outside Japan) and that they do not utilize packaging. Rather it might be more useful to examine the impact that Muji might have on similar stores in Canada, namely Target, Staples, Shoppers, Ikea and clothing companies as mentioned in the article.

Muji sells a wide range of products, including bedroom equipment/accessories, clothes, food, household products and accessories etc. However, due to the lack of extreme focus that Muji places on any of these products in particular, it is less likely to be a threat to major, established stores in Canada such as Ikea, Staples, which are trusted brands for the specific genre/type of products that they sell (Ikea for furniture, Staples for stationary). The stores most likely to be affected are Shoppers and Target, which are similar stores to Muji in terms of products sold as well as product variety. One of Muji’s greatest value propositions is its ability to produce a wide range of HIGH quality products which are durable and minimize wastage (or resources or space). This might be a point of difference which the likes of Shoppers and Target cannot compete with, as Shoppers in particular is more of a distributor of products from other companies (with Muji being its own brand), while Target offers even more products than Muji which may not suit specific customers’ needs.