How Is Muji One of the World’s Largest Contrarian Companies?
MUJI is known to be “trendy” for its sophisticated yet affordable stationery. For many Americans, the MUJI we’ve been exposed to is from the studyblr community or one of those aesthetic journaling or note-taking Instagram and tumblr accounts. But outside the United States, especially in its home country Japan, MUJI is so much more. With its unique business model and company mission, MUJI establishes itself as a contrarian company, one whose approach seems to contradict current global company trends and norms. What’s behind MUJI’s uncommon “anti-design, anti-consumption” philosophy? Has it been an effective strategy in MUJI’s effort to expand the company globally? By answering these questions, we can explain and analyze MUJI’s successes and failures to learn about the effectiveness of contrarian marketing.
Back to School supplies in MUJI store in Sweden
MUJI’S BACKGROUND
MUJI is the shorten form of Mujirushi Ryohin 無印良品, which translates to “no brand quality goods”, a phrase that accurately summarizes MUJI’s production approach. It was founded in 1980 by The Seiyu, Ltd (Seiyu), a Japanese retail company. They started out with only 40 products, growing tremendously in the four decades since its founding and now boasting around 700 stores in 31 countries and over 7000 products.
MUJI Newbury Street, Boston, MA
According to its website, the company “offers a wide variety of good quality products including household goods, apparel, and food” at relatively affordable prices. As such, many of its popular products include stationery (pens, notebooks, etc), skincare and beauty products, and textiles (those Organic Cotton Blend Face Towels look especially comfortable). Some of its more interesting products include innovative and extremely helpful kitchen gadgets, bean bags, and air purifiers. More recently, MUJI has even made its enthusiasts’ dreams come true by opening MUJI hotels in the cities of Shenzhen and Beijing in China and in the city of Ginza in Japan. With its wide range of products and services, MUJI is able to accomplish its goal of providing products for every aspect of their customer’s daily needs.
“MUJI IS ENOUGH”
What sets MUJI apart from other retail companies is its commitment to provide for a truly minimalist lifestyle. The company claims to have no “brand”, which is generally believed to be the “ image and perceptions people have of a thing based on their experiences with it.” However, MUJI is brandless in the sense that its products don’t have a distinct logo or “excessive labeling.” This is clearly reflected in the packaging of all MUJI products, which are monochromatic and have very simple labels, usually beige in color. This decision to go “brandless” says a lot about MUJI’s philosophy of “ designing and selling products that are stripped down to their minimalist core.”
Some of MUJI’s stationery products
“We believe we can liberate consumers by eliminating all unnecessary aspects of the products we make,’’
According to Naoto Fukasawa, a former design director at MUJI, “The keyword is ‘Muji is enough’ . . . Muji always indicates what’s appropriate to fit our everyday life. That’s very important. We have to think about the “appropriateness,” the “fit-ness.” As such, MUJI products focus on functionality and simplicity over the flashiness and branding adopted by most retail products. They work well to meet the basic needs of any consumer. We see this sentiment across MUJI’s website too: according to the site, MUJI’s goal isn’t for a customer to view its product and think “ ‘This is what I really want’, but with ‘This will do’.” The emphasis that MUJI has placed on this philosophy has appealed to the Japanese public, but Satoru Matsuzaki, the president of Ryohin Keikaku (the company behind MUJI), believes that consumers worldwide - not just in Japan - will resonate with MUJI’s principles.
“The idea is the product. And the end result is the product. Muji exists only to deliver it to you. Its own identity is insignificant.”
- MUJI visitor
MUJI store in Stockholm, Sweden
THE FUTURE AND NECESSARY CHANGES
In its process of expanding into new global markets and countries, however, MUJI has been finding itself faced with many challenges that they had not faced when only based in their home country of Japan. Unfortunately, the United States is the largest area of concern for the Japanese company.
According to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, which is a “retail research and consulting agency providing intelligence and insight on retail markets worldwide”, MUJI’s strategy when it came to store placement was to choose “prime locations” in big cities. An example of such a location in the United States would be the store in SoHo, NYC. SoHo is known to be a trendy shopping destination and is famous for its high-end shops and restaurants. However, such high-end locations did not seem to help improve MUJI’s popularity in the States. According to Saunders, the “fairly low-value” products at MUJI did not match the luxurious quality of neighboring stores and restaurants in these big cities. In comparison, MUJI locations in the US failed to garner enough hype to place it at the same level of stores in their area. This failed strategy can also be attributed to the fact MUJI has yet to become mainstream in the United States. As Saunders puts it, “You’re not getting people from Idaho and Arizona surfing on the Muji site….The brand doesn’t have the visibility.”
Almost three months ago, the US arm of MUJI filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in response to the significant loss it experienced in 2019 and hardships as a result of the COVID pandemic. MUJI is also looking to minimize its losses in the American market by looking into reducing the number of US stores, which is currently at 18. It’s also looking to establish stores in smaller and cheaper locations, such as malls.
MUJI is collaborating with a Finnish developer to create a self-driving bus known as the “Gacha Bus”
MUJI is definitely looking to expand the genres of services and products it has to offer, which is seen in their launching of MUJI hotels in Japan and China. Keeping in line with their philosophy of sustainability and being able to address the everyday needs of regular citizens, MUJI is also looking into entering the mobility market. One reason MUJI is looking to launch this initiative is because of the growing elderly population in Japan. With a growing eldery population comes a growing need for reliable public transportation, a fact that MUJI aims to address. Additionally, the company understands that public transportation will be important to the rest of the world as well, since climate change is an issue that concerns many around the world and public transportation can play a role in addressing that concern.
In-store childcare in MUJI store
Based on its interest in many new areas, such as hospitality and mobility, it seems MUJI has many high aspirations and hopes to be for the world what it currently is for Japan - that is, a company that can offer goods and services that are both affordable and sufficient in quality. According to Satoru Matsuzaki, however, “[MUJI’s] aim is not to grow as large as we can,” but rather to “be tenacious in our quest to deliver on the Muji promise and to be of use in the lives of people around the world.” This philosophy interestingly contrasts with the “over-the-top commercialism” of many major companies, and it will be interesting to see how successful MUJI will be in fulfilling their goals in, as Matsuzaki puts it, “the most populous and the most remote areas of the world”.
Written By Sulphia Iqbal