A Cult Japanese Retailer Making Billions Breaking All the Rules
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
If you go to a location in a crowded tourist spot, then most of the customers are going to be tourists, and the selection of items will reflect that (more throw-away crap). At the Dotombori location in Osaka, for example, it felt like almost every customer there was speaking Chinese, and the staff also spoke Chinese.
Out in more rural areas, in my experience, people primarily shop there for discounted household items. The more bizarre items (and sex toys) seem limited to the urban locations. There is a degree of dichotomy between the two that is worth keeping in mind.
If this is the future, I don't want it.
> Almost half of its products are leftover goods that manufacturers couldn’t otherwise sell.
also i feel like almost every city will have a business like this that sells everything under one roof that does very very well. japan itself has a lot of these kind of businesses - daiso, tokyu, etc. places like donki just happen to be the most well known of them all.
I've always referred to crap at discount stores as "future garbage." Sure, that's end-of-the-line for most things, but these discount stores peddle stuff with an exceptionally short useful life. Especially targeted towards kids, I feel! I guess it's easier for a parent to give in to a child's wants when the toy is only a buck.
Buying cheap crap from the start is just an optimisation of the process.
I also have myself been a kid who grew up with no gaming console in the age of Pokemon, who never indulged in kid music and derivates, who did not wear brands, who did not get to own a pet, and many other things my parents didn't allow, no matter how often I asked for them.
Is it that hard to admit one's own laxism that there's need to resort to badly aged sophisms ?
But keep convincing yourself that your kid has a dagger under your throat at the toy shop checkout and that people with more will power are assholes. I have been on the kid end at least even if not on the parent one. You seem to have been on neither.
Is a building kit with magnets 'crap' ? Is a doll 'crap' ? Is a hand powered fan 'crap' ? Are colouring books 'crap' ?
I think a ton of small toys are tremendously fun, can help discover different mechanisms, and help grow a kid's mind. Limiting the variety and amount of toys can end up fine, but from the parent POV it's a bit sad really. Especially when by definition we can't anticipate what for any specific kid will be a hit and what won't.
I think you and the GP may have different definitions of semi disposable. I personally wouldn't class a few months as a counterpoint.
And if they’ve lasted months already, they’ll probably last just as long as anything from any other store.
Large silicone mat for $1.50, Nice bamboo slab for $3, stainless steel rulers, fine-point dry erase markers, etc... There are some gems in there.
Daiso is a step up from Donki. I have a holder of Daiso pens and other stationary in front of me now which is decent quality and has lasted me a few years (including the holder!)
I feel Donki is not particularly cheap. It's just presented in a way that makes it appear that it would be.
The uncomfortable and usually unsafe part is something that could be worked on, but otherwise it has tremendous value for single purpose products or appliance where required quality level is extremely low (e.g. takoyaki sets).
It straightly goes against the romantic “buy it for life” idea, but I think asking people to care about every single stuff they buy is a tall order anyway.
I have to confess that, in small doses (so as not to lose my sanity), I sort of enjoy the all-sorts-of-random-crap stores. I could spend unhealthy amounts of my time in those 100 Yen stores (or whatever they are called, I might be misremembering their names).
But Don Quijote was just garish and uncomfortable. It was even difficult to walk the aisles. Everything about it screamed to me "get out of here fast!". I can't understand how it is successful.
PS: while on the subject of these crap/budget stores, can someone from the US tell me if my hunch is right about the following? While visiting the US I discovered those Five Below stores (everything between $1 and $5) and I think I figured their trick: while the advertised price range is true, this doesn't mean what they sell is actually cheap! For example, I'm pretty sure I saw Hot Wheels cars at about $3 when everywhere else the same toys were near $1. Am I missing something?
All retailers play the same game though, with products priced as loss leaders to get traffic in the door in the hopes you don't notice you're paying 1.5x as much for anything else you grab while there.
The dollar stores take it to the next level (as you noticed). They thrive on the financial illiteracy of poor and rural demographics.
Look at the price of paper towels. Only $1, right? But it's half the size of the $1 rolls at Walmart.
Other stuff is just poor quality. $1 for a gallon of watered-down "bleach", versus $3 for the real deal elsewhere.
God help you if you swing a dollar store hammer around. Those dollar safety glasses will be about as effective as taping an actual dollar across your eyes.
Like a timeshare salesman or casino, they make you think you're winning to keep you coming back.
Is renting a couch from a rent-to-repo store truly necessary? No. Nobody needs a couch.
But they'll insist they do and willingly amortize the cost of 10 couches to temporarily have one.
:/ Might make sense to review this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18746790.
I wandered into quite a few last week mostly just looking at all the types of goods you just don't see in Australia. Bought a lot of weird flavoured Kit-Kats.
Daiso
They are not beautiful, but I am fascinated by these chains as a phenomenon, nonetheless.
I’ve had Ikea stuff for over ten years easily. I still work off of a solid pine Ikea kitchen table I got for $60 CAD about 11 years ago(I bought two! My parents are using one). It’s my home desk.
Some of it is worse than other stuff but I’ve never had the problem of having to junk it so soon as all that.
Though, to be fair, they used to laminate them in real wood.
That said I've had some mac-tack $10 Ikea bookshelves (I bought 4!) for over 4 years and I've moved them once, taken them apart and put them back together multiple times with no problems . I store my entire mini library on those. All good.
If you're careless with the connectors and screws then you're going to have a bad time. Definitely watch how much torque you put into any action. I also wouldn't treat them as a jungle gym. They won't compare to a dovetailed hardwood shelf mounted to studs, but they hold up alright with care.
They're made of particleboard - it's literally made of wood chips glued into a block. Glue is the only thing holding it together.
If you want a company that makes completely useless landfill stuff see Flying Tiger from Sweden. That store is nothing but trash and deserves your wrath far more than donki
As an aside, it's from Denmark, not Sweden - either/or would be surprising to me - my ignorant British perspective is that Scandies tend to be more Calvinistically-prudent and Gaia-centric and not beholden to landfill crap.
Also national stereotypes are weird.
Considering the amount of glues and plastic required to make IKEA furniture I'm not convinced even at the 10 year mark IKEA is better ecologically, but that is a complex question that I wouldn't know how to analyse (if anyone tries I expect a few years latter someone will find a significant factor they didn't account for, and again a few years latter...)
Even if you're right, moving frequently is a fact of life for young people who grew up away from the west/east costs. It's the only way for young people who grew up in the midwest to launch a successful career.
Hometown --> college --> internships --> back to college --> grad school --> first job --> second job --> etc.
I've bought clothing from H&M and had zero problems with it. Same with Uniqlo, Zara, and other cheaper/cheapish clothing places.
I feel like there is a big difference between H&M and Flying Tiger. H&M actually sells useful items. Shirts, Pants, Jackets, Jeans, Suits. They all work. I haven't found them to be of poor quality.
Flying Tiger on the other hand seems to sell mostly useless stuff meant to give away at a white elephant gift exchange and then thrown in the trash.
As some economists will argue, being able to by clothing for less allows poorer people to buy clothing and allows all people to spend more money somewhere else (food, shelter, education, entertainment, ...) so it's hard for me to see how H&M is hurting things but maybe I don't have all the facts. I know they do have a recycling program. I suppose you could argue that's part of the problem though.
It does works but the quality control is questionable. You will often find poorly done and finished sewing or pieces which are cut approximately. They also often use the cheapest fabric they can get away with. It leads to clothes which really don't age well.
Where I agree with you is that a lot of brands which present themselves as mid range actually don't do much better and are just selling over-priced pieces.
This plays on continuous loop at all stores.
They also have hilariously bad Engrish on their in-store signs. I assume it's deliberate, because anyone I talked to there speaks English just fine.
The baked yams the article mentions are really super popular here, too.
To be honest, I get a huge kick out of funky/odd/slightly off translations. I know they're trying their best and I seriously appreciate that, but I still find it humorous when it's really bad, just as I expect them to find humor in me goofing up trying to say something in Japanese.
On the really bad note, I saw what I assume to be donation box on the memorial to mobilized children in Hiroshima that said 'Please Help Yourself'. I had to do a second read of that and it conjured up a mental image of some American digging around in the box for spare change to the sheer horror of Japanese onlookers.
But who knows, maybe that was the proper translation and it was for the poor who couldn't quite make the change they needed for something essential. But when I see a box of money bolted to a memorial, I generally assume it's either for the people being memorialized or upkeep of the memorial.
Other interesting translations from my Japan vacation:
- 24 hr Reparking
- The coke of food for specified health use.
- A lamp warning label that said "mind the burn."
It's maddening.
I like to go there at 2am (no traffic = short travel time) to buy food, or maybe some small tools (socket wrenches, etc..) that I need while working on my cars at night or even radiator fluid. You can also go earlier in the evening (around 7-9pm) and scope out the makeup section, try some "nanpa" with the kabakura girls before they head to work.
Between Aeon MaxValu (supermarket), DonQ, and Family Mart convenience stores, you have access to easily 90% of the consumable products you might need in a typical month, and available 24/7. Clean stores with all-hours convenience like this are one of the highlights of living in Japan compared to some other places in Asia. Ttry buying batteries at 2am in Hanoi...
A typhoon tore away the sign of a pachinko place near us (it hit a nearby building), and apparently instead of fixing their store they decided to close it down and sell the building to Don Quijote.
Seems like a good match for them, as the pachinko place is huge, with 6 wide floors that used to be gambling machines shoulder-to-shoulder, but I guess will now be tightly packed cheap goods instead.
Everyone here is excited by it, as we have no interesting stores otherwise nearby. The first I heard the rumors was from wife's barber, and they quickly spread and other random people started telling me about the new store.
Next town over they bought an old local supermarket (again, with huge amounts of floor space)
The traditional 100yen shoppe is more my speed, but this place is where you need to be, if its random gift time, as long as neck-pillows for airlines and trains, in the shape of a crotch with red undies are your idea of a random gift.
I like Muji, I like Daiso (branded as Living Plaza here, and which I always describe to people as "what if Muji did a pound shop?") and I'm looking forward to the first Don Quijote store opening in Hong Kong later this year!
In their European branches, that is. Possibly they are also great in their Japanese shops.
With a shoe size of 11 1/2, however, you don't really get a chance to test that, since you won't find anything for your feet in that size.
Even sneakers are problematic.
Those stores are a mess inside and I can only imagine make a profit because they sell everything. In central Tokyo, most of them are just tourist traps at this point.
Many years ago I lived in Shibuya and Donki was the only place I could get a lot of basic supplies, including even groceries, at a reasonable price. Now I live somewhere else in central Tokyo and don’t go nearly as often thanks to Amazon, but it’s still the only place to buy a lot of items.
Also my comment doesn't preclude Donki having some daily necessities. As for calling it a "staple" for central Tokyo, that's a bit of a stretch. If you said outside of the 23 wards, then I would agree.
Go see a Donki in a residential neighborhood and it'll be full of locals. I live in Shirokane, an upscale highly residential neighborhood off of Meguro station, and even if it's reputed as one of the richest place in Tokyo there is a Donki and it's packed with local families shopping.
I admit I am biased in that my nearest Donki is the Roppongi location.
You’re overgeneralizing from limited experience. Not everything in Japan is like Shibuya or Roppongi.
I'm well aware of the diversity (or sometimes lackthereof) of Japanese cities/neighborhoods. I've been living here for 10 years.
Not quite right, they do open till very late but the one I've been to (in Iwate) closed at around 3 am.
Some typical bikes, junky foods and meat and vegetables to energize, a lot of liquor, battery for smartphones, some condoms for emergency, hangers and clothes to live in the new place, travel luggage, most general amenities, lightbulbs, contact lenses, bandage, medicines, and some funny stuffs ... they are all there!
You can also buy an adorable doll named DonPen there during the act. Of course I have it.
This sounds like it ought to make scaling to different countries difficult. If you don't have a unique supply chain, then what advantage do you have over a mom and pop discount store?
Uniqlo, Muji, and Daiso (which is less well known but has quite a few US stores) seem to source centrally, just like other global retailers.
In the article it mentioned those managers dictate what gets on the shelf and mention how they chase after surprise hit (wax nose hair). It seems they're more agile than their competitors and let managers living in those area decides what products to stock.
Perhaps they don't need a unique supply chain?
The one in Zest Oike, Kyoto for example was quite small and dominated by a very large selection of socks.
In the Yakuza games you get to go to a Donki store.
If I ever go to Japan there are a few places that I'll have no trouble getting around because I've been all over them again and again in video games.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/n3Cri8BKUDWyfiAG6
I think they intentionally put these in nightlife districts, so they can be a sort of drunk man's IKEA where you always end up buying more than you planned to.
Complete with food.
I recently ran into a "Yubiso" in KL, meaning there's now a Malaysian clone of a Chinese clone of Japanese stores (Miniso is basically Uniqlo and Muji mashed together).
Does that scale? What's the point of a mega-corp at that point, beyond providing capital to start a local store?
Or perhaps my impression was completely wrong?
Interesting retailing concept. I do wonder if Japanese consumers will ever tire of the novelty. Then again, 29 years of growth might suggest otherwise.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-don-quijote/japans-...