Taking the SPA retail model to Asia, starting with Korea (2002)

Going out without a name

What first catches the eye about this overseas expansion is less the choice of country than the order of the moves. Going to sell in the country where it had been having its goods made — choosing as its first market a place where it already possessed the supply route — reveals the company’s caution. So does the sequence of entering through a joint venture, borrowing local knowledge, and raising its stake to 100% only once the store format had settled. Including the fact that it was begun in parallel with the acceleration of domestic shopping-centre openings, this looks less like a large gamble than a way of widening the stride while checking the ground.

On the other hand, blending into a local market without being recognized as Japanese carries two meanings at once. It is less exposed to boycotts, but it cannot bring out the trust and the story built up in Japan. Shoe retailing is a business decided by assortment and location, and there being unknown is not necessarily a disadvantage. Now that it has entered a stage of buying local companies’ stores to add scale, however, the question of what it stands for when customers choose it may come to be asked abroad before it is asked at home.