Asia Bizz: On March 16, 2012, Fast Retailing opened its largest flagship Uniqlo store in Ginza. With the launch in Tokyo, it has become the 9th flagship store in the world. Moreover, it is the first for the clothing retailer which has hired 20 percent of the staff, or about 100 employees, who are non-Japanese. The store occupies 5,000 square meters and features 12 floors at the Ginza 6 chome (former Ginza Komatsu Building).
The new store at Ginza features 12 floors and all of them sell the Uniqlo brand and the building has a transparent glass facade. Even before the store was officially opened, more than 300 shoppers queued up before the opening time so that they could be the first one to shop at the new store.
Yuki Kurihara, one of the enthusiastic shoppers said that she wanted to see the store. The shopper added that for a long time Ginza had the image of being a place for sophisticated grown-ups and that she hardly came here to shop. Yuki said that the image is now slowly changing and that Ginza is now becoming more approachable.
In order to serve the best to customers from all over the world visiting the store, Ginza has for the first time offered concierge service. The concierge staff will help in providing information on the Ginza and the Yurakucho districts.
The new service will act as a fashion adviser and will also help the customers to have the best shopping experience. The concierge will have a staff of native speakers of six different languages will be attending the customers in Japanese, French, Chinese, Spanish and Korean. In case of the foreign customers, they will recognize their native language with the help of a name tag. Uniqlo says that it enjoys rapid expansion abroad and also hopes to promote sales with the new flagship store.
