Strong economic growth, more open markets and high levels of technological change have produced significant benefits for consumers over the last two decades. These changes have produced less expensive, more reliable and more convenient goods and the speed with which new products diffuse in the marketplace is certainly accelerating. Likewise, the higher “cost-effectiveness” for reasonable consumption trend is rising these days. The virgin markets such as 99 Cent Store and the Dollar Tree have over 10,000 branches in the U.S. The Dollar Store has been booming since 2008 despite the global financial crisis. Traditional big markets such as Wal-Mart are also selling low-priced products and struggling to gain customers from competitors. There is a variety of low-priced products in the low-price market, but the quality is not generally satisfactory because of the limitation of price.
Miniso realized that quality is the true value of the brand and aims to become a leader in the fast-living market by positioning itself as a cultural content. Miniso is a Japanese lifestyle SPA brand that entered the Asian market based in Guangzhou in 2013 with good quality creative goods and a reasonable price. Junya Miyake, a Japanese designer in Tokyo, and Ye Guo Fu, an entrepreneur in China, co-founded Miniso and Miyake works as a senior designer.
In January 2016, with the launch of Miniso and Miniso Korea, various Miniso’s global products began to be introduced to Korean consumers. Miniso currently has about 1,600 stores throughout Asia, and they open about 100 new stores in just a month. Miniso Korea’s CEO, Min-soo Ko is developing Korea’s unique character by taking advantage of the cost-effectiveness and fashionable products of Global Miniso. Miniso Korea also follows along the same principle of making products that are good quality and reasonably priced. As a high quality brand, they specialize in global sourcing and procure materials all over the world. The company offers safer, more reliable and cheaper products for consumers and is constantly striving to improve their quality. In addition, Miniso Korea has developed its own PB products and supplied them in various countries. The goal of Miniso Korea is to raise their competitiveness in the global market since 20% of Miniso’s products are self-developed by Miniso Korea. Additionally, they have made a partnership with Korean cosmetics by utilizing the strengths of the Korean beauty trend, developing PB products and selling Korean cultural contents as higher cost-effectiveness, and trying to export them as well.
Sunny Seon
Irene Kim
K-Herald Korea
(Los Angeles Times Advertising Supplement)
