rejected or outright ejected them; modern retailer migrations are similar in this way, too. Witness the abandonment of Asia by Carrefour, Metro and Tesco, the retreat of Starbucks from Australia, and of Topshop and Debenhams from, well, everywhere. Each of them set out with global ambitions and succumbed to sour receptions from parochial consumers and energetic local retailers protective of their turf. Yet Japanese retailers seem to be an exception. They have done remarkably well everywhere, with just a few blemishes on the record when a retailer got a bit ahead of itself and didn’t read the market – for example, Uniqlo’s first tilt at the US. Why is that and what can we learn from it? One only has to look at what Japanese retailers and mall developers have achieved around the Southeast Asia region to realise that something is genuinely unique about them that transcends parochialism and makes consumers love them. What is the secret sauce? Bangkok is a good place to start One good place to look for an answer is, ironically, a place where a Japanese department store had to close. In 2020, Isetan closed at CentralWorld in Bangkok. The official explanation was that, after 28 years in operation, the department store had reached the end of its lease, but it had also reached the end of its tether. The panicked government response to Covid-19 eviscerated one of the store’s biggest customer bases – Japanese tourists – and with the on-again-off-again lockdowns, domestic customers were shooed away, too. Central Pattana, the mall’s owner, vowed to redevelop the store into something much better, and to its great credit, it is well on its way to succeeding. (Renovations are still under way on the fourth level.) But a crucial part of the redevelopment is quintessentially Japanese: The third level has an all- Japanese food street, the fifth level a gorgeous Nitori home furnishings store and the sixth a sprawling Kinokuniya book store. So despite the fact that the original department store departed, that wing of the mall is still heavily imbued with a Japanese flavour. Out-Japaning Japan Now, walk across Ratchadamri to the Big C Super center on the other side of the road. Tucked away downstairs, you’ll find a retailer that isn’t Japanese but for all the world pretends to be. That’s Moshi Moshi, a dead ringer for a Japanese operator that is, in fact, homegrown Thai. Moshi Moshi has mimicked Japan retail superbly, with beautiful visual merchandising, efficient use of space, design-rich, sharply priced products across a dozen categories and a playful in-store experience. Moshi Moshi isn’t the only one trying to out-Japan the Japanese. In the same retail category and at similar price points is Singapore’s Oh!Some, which has 90 stores and is branching out across Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia. These retailers do a beautiful job of replicating instantly recognisable characteristics of ubiquitous Japanese retailers like Daiso, Miniso, Muji, Don Don Donki, Nitori and Uniqlo, all of which can be found in abundance around Asia. If you are not yet tired of walking in the relentless Bangkok heat and you are not too over-Japaned already (who ever is?), just around the corner on the main drag running east-west through the CBD is Siam Piwat’s brilliant vertical mall, Siam Discovery, designed by, guess who, the pre-eminent Japanese design firm Nendo, headed by Oki Sato. On the second floor is Loft, a genuine Japanese retailer in the lifestyle category. Loft also has a unit on the third floor of IconSiam at the other side of the Chao Phraya River. IconSiam is intended partly to be a celebration of Thailand’s own culture, but Japanese brands are well represented there, too, since it is anchored by a massive upscale Japanese department store, Takashimaya, which houses 170 Japanese brands. It all starts back in Japan The success story of Japanese retail is, of course, traceable back to the source. Takashimaya – which has a much-loved outpost on Orchard Road in Singapore, the aforementioned store in Icon Siam and units in Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City – is a storied chain back home in Japan, famous for its upscale brands and superb customer service, characteristics it shares with competing department store chains like J Front. Since Covid-19, the run-up in duty-free sales as tourism has gradually returned to normal has been important; however, the big sales gains of 2024, particularly at flagship stores in major tourism destinations such as Tokyo and Kyoto, were never expected to be matched this year, with the bar being set so high. This has proven to be true: The year started promisingly enough, with sales at Takashimaya’s 14-store domestic chain rising by 6.3 per cent, year-on-year, but that was followed by a 1 per cent decline in February and a 2.5 per cent decrease in March. Growth slowing Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) puts out a monthly report for sales at large chains and throughout 2024 it made for mostly cheerful reading. Already in 2025, the high bar set last year is beginning to make its presence felt in the numbers. Results are so far available only for January and February: Things started positively in January (more than 4.4 per cent) but flattened out in February (more than 1.4 per cent). Department stores were down 2 per cent in February (mirroring Takashimaya), supermarkets edged up 1.6 per cent, and convenience stores also edged up 0.3 per cent. Interestingly, the strongest category was electrical appliances, which rose 5.6 per cent.  With tourism numbers now set to grow more slowly year over year, and domestic consumer confidence weak, retailers in Japan will be upping the ante on customer service and (particularly in the case of the department stores) trying to extract as much value as they possibly can out of their most loyal customers. They will be redoubling their efforts to seek opportunities overseas. So if you can’t get enough of Japanese retail, don’t despair, more will be on the way. What makes them so good? So what are the critical pieces of the puzzle that make these Japanese retailers so good and so strongly embraced outside of Japan, especially in regions like Southeast Asia? Design excellence in everyday items This one doesn’t apply to department stores as much but it does to many popular Japanese specialty retailers: Take mundane everyday items and redesign them into something special we can get excited about. That, essentially, is what lifestyle retail is all about. It’s design-rich and functional – the ability to instil excellence in the everyday. By making a functional product attractive, -you can even open up categories to consumers who wouldn’t ordinarily buy into them. You have made them reimagine (yes, in this case the word actually applies) an item in their own lives that was previously irrelevant. Sharp, accessible pricing The Japanese are atop their game again in this regard. Sourcing teams are generally outstanding. You don’t need a large store if you use space efficiently and keep things tidy  Japan is a densely populated nation with small living spaces that require excellent organisation, so it is little wonder that they are masterful at creating small retail spaces that pack in a lot of items without looking cluttered. Visual merchandising is critically important. Again, Japanese retailers are masterful at creating eye-catching displays that draw people into the store and make shopping a whole lot more engaging. The stores usually look terrific. You don’t have to be trendy The most successful Japanese retailers are not particularly trendy; they strive for novelty and uniqueness rather than trendiness. Even Uniqlo, Japan’s most successful global specialty retailer, is set apart from fast-fashion retailers by investing in fabric technology for clothing basics rather than cutting-edge fashion. Your customer service has to be excellent This is particularly true of the department stores that need top-drawer interactions with affluent customers to build relationships and personalise shopping experiences (in a way that is healthy rather than creepy). However, even in specialty shopping environments, Japanese customer service tends to be above average. Outside of Japan, retailers seed new stores with staff from the home country who can train up the locals, which is critically important in places like Thailand, where in-store service is at best patchy. Healthy and wholesome The Japanese brand is linked closely to good physical and mental health: healthy food, excellence in elite sports and social networks that promote long and happy lives. For this reason, Japanese retailers already have a head start over those from other countries, particularly those from the West. Hey Kinokuniya, you can’t judge a book by its cover A word of caution though: Sometimes, Japanese retailers can be house-proud and go overboard with the neat-and-tidy thing. Back in Bangkok, at the Kinokuniya store in the redeveloped Isetan, you are offered a great variety and depth of book topics, books in multiple languages, plenty of space to browse and a coffee shop. But wait a minute, something is wrong here. All the books are shrink-wrapped and you can’t preview them to find out if they are what you want. Kinokuniya is so obsessed with keeping its products clean and immaculate that it prevents shoppers from genuinely accessing them. Imagine a perfume shop without testers, a footwear shop without benches, or a clothing shop without change-rooms. That is, however, a rare blemish on a great retail pedigree. People outside Japan just love Japanese retailers and for good reasons. Perhaps the biggest one of all is that at a very high level, Japanese retailers simply have the wherewithal to bring order and calm to our often chaotic lives. They are able to do this because in their beautiful but small and crowded country, they’ve had to learn to do that for themselves. Now, it’s their gift to the world. So, Japan, please give us more. This story first appeared in the May 2025 issue of Inside Retail Asia magazine.