Miniso store chain eyes Canadian expansion in 2018

Chinese discount retailer Miniso is playing a major assault in Canada with 100 stores targeted by year end and 500 within three years.

Miniso is growing so fast it is difficult to keep an accurate count of its global network, but co-founder/chief designer Miyake Junya said in November he planned to have 10,000 stores trading in 100 countries by 2019, and targets global revenue of US$15 billion. It already has stores in China (1000), Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Australia, the UAE, Mexico, the US and Europe, among other marketins.

The first Miniso Canada store opened in Pickering Town Centre last October in a compact 1500sqft (140sqm) space. More have opened since, including a large 4300sqft site in Bramalea City, taking the national tally to about 18.

“Our philosophy is high-quality goods at an affordable price,” Sherman Leung, district manager, Miniso Canada Investments, said in an interview this month. “We’re a variety-retail, lifestyle store at a very reasonable price.”

In Canada, concepts like Miniso are seen as a succession of the traditional dollar store model which specialises in cheap goods at just a few rounded-off price points – in the case of Canada’s market-leading Dollarama, which has about 1500 stores, all under C$5. Globally, dollar stores are starting to suffer from quality perceptions in the wake of Miniso’s competitively priced yet reasonable quality goods across many product categories.