"
. With Muji’s designs … on middle America?
PSFK notes this Japan Today writeup about Muji planning a further push into the U.S. market. Last year the company — maker of many products; the name roughly means “no-brand goods” — got some notice for opening a boutique in SoHo. (It has operated a store within the Moma Design Store since 2004; here’s a Consumed about Muji from January 9, 2005.)
Interestingly they’re sounding pretty ambitious. The president of Muji USA says: “I don’t want to just be accepted by design-conscious people or people who like Asian tastes…I want Muji to be accepted as a generic brand.”
While most brands target a certain segment of consumers, the purpose of being ‘‘a no brand’’ is to appeal to all people by ‘‘simply providing products that are comfortable and convenient.’’
The Japan Today item quotes a number of people who all seem pretty skeptical that Muji can make it outside “trend-conscious” locales like NYC. It also mentions something I didn’t know, which is that Uniqlo closed its three locations in New Jersey. I was really interested in those at the time, partly because I was living in Jersey, but also because I thought it was a really interesting move to test the waters outside of Manhattan, which is really an atypical retail setting. I was briefly in touch with somebody from Uniqlo at the time and my memory is that this was a very explicit strategy on their part, that they didn’t want to just be focused on superconsumers who prowl SoHo.
I guess that testing of the waters didn’t go so well? Or maybe they just shifted tactics. I have no idea what either company’s strategy is at this point, but if Muji is serious about trying to build a more mainstream base in the U.S., it’ll be interesting to see how the company goes about it. Apart from the forthcoming Times Square location, the article mentions “small outlets” in New York airports. Hm.
.
.
Kim Fellner's book 
.
A
Reader Comments
FWIW, if i were Muji i’d look at two kinda hip brands that also sell kinda generic stuff and have also tried to expand across the country: Urban Outfitters and, yes, American Apparel. they both have an interesting map of outlets, kind of like a guide to blue oases.
I agree.
And an interesting side note about this is that I first heard about Muji in 2004, from … Dov Charney! (CEO of American Apparel.) He was a big fan of Muji (at the time at least). And I tend to agree that one of the interesting things about both American Apparel and URBN is their store-placement strategy.
One of the most underrated aspects of building that kind of brand (and I would include Starbucks in this broad point) is the retail real-estate scouting operation: Knowing which neighborhood, which street, in Pittsburgh, Savannah, Austin, Portland, Chicago, etc. etc. etc. That stuff is hard to execute, but URBN, American Apparel, and Starbucks (which has a different demo) all have good track records on that, in my view.
Another one to watch on this is Threadless. They are supposedly going to roll out more retail spaces, and it will be very interesting, if they do it, to track where they go. I don’t just mean which cities, but which neighborhoods in those cities. It’s hard to do right.