Luxury Retail Excellence in Japan

The Impact of the Digital Transformation (DX) on Us Due to the coronavirus pandemic, in the fashion and apparel industry, which had been said to be lagging behind, many companies have finally been forced to take a serious step in Japan. Some of them are even cutting back on the number of stores and shifting their resources to strengthen EC and OMO (Online Merges with Offline), based on the belief that physical stores will not be as necessary in the near future. This major trend of the times is finally becoming inevitable, and the consolidation of physical stores and the resulting shakeout of the sales associate is becoming a reality. Unlike in the past, when the number of customers was increased by opening new stores, physical stores of the future will be more competitive in terms of "quality" than ever before. However, the "quality" of these stores' services is gradually reaching the limit of what can be achieved through efforts to refine the existing framework

Key Points for cultivating clientele in Japan (1)  Go one step further!  "To choose what you wear is to choose how you live." Fashion (clothing, accessories, hairstyle, makeup, perfume, etc.) is recognized as a means of expressing one's "individuality" as well as expressing one's "sense of beauty". This is why many people choose their clothes and personal belongings in accordance with TPO, considering "what kind of person they want to be" and "what kind of person they want to be seen as." This means that, whether they are aware of it or not, the customers who visit your stores have some kind of desire to "be like this" or "be perceived as this by others." In contrast, brand sales associates (fashion advisors) can not create value for the customer if they simply say "this is a new item" or "this is a popular item" in order to attract the customer's interest, or if they explain how wonde

Perfection is the norm. Brands are trained by customers. Luxury brand staff often says to me, "Japanese customers are especially meticulous. As a luxury brand, it is a prerequisite that products are inspected, stored, and handled with the utmost care and in accordance with the rules, without a scratch. The white gloves used for customer service symbolize this in a sense. However, it is not the case that there are products that are free of wrinkles and scratches. To me, it is a matter of taste that each piece is different, and if you take down a new piece of leather and use it once, it will get scratched anyway," but many Japanese people are particular about the quality of leather. The staff, who also want customers to feel good about using their products, will compare them with other products in stock and show them carefully until they are satisfied. They are also trained to make sure that the wrapping is perfect, so that customers can take the merchandise home feeling great.

  The key mission of luxury brands is "continuity”. For many Japanese, Western brand products have always been the object of admiration, regardless of gender. Of course, this is partly because they reflect craftsmanship, European history, and culture, but if anything, it is more directly related to the spiritual satisfaction of owning the product than the practical aspect. Recently, an increasing number of young Japanese check how much second-hand items sell for on Mercari, which is a Japanese marketplace platform where you can buy and sell almost anything  and choose items that do not fall in price, which can be seen as a sign of their desire to own sophisticated, high-quality items, even if they are a little more expensive. During the heyday of DC brands in the 1980s in Japan, when people used to line up in laps around the store every time a new product came out, I myself thought that this ridiculous trend would not last very long. In Japan, the life span of a company is said to