The Malaysian Insider

TOKYO, Nov 12 — It is almost midnight and the department stores and boutiques have long closed for the day. So what is an inveterate shopper to do?

The typical Japanese with the urge to go pick up a few items at that hour might head for the nearest Don Quijote store to check out its eclectic offerings, which include just about everything one can think of, and then some.

Donki — short for Don Quijote and the company’s nickname — is a discount retailer with more than 200 outlets throughout Japan and four in Hawaii.

Its stores, which often sport garish, eye-catching facades, stock a bewildering variety of products, from fake fingernails to maids’ uniforms in addition to food and daily necessities.

Every Donki store is chock-full of merchandise and each floor is deliberately laid out like a maze so that shoppers will stumble on new discoveries at every turn.

Most of Donki’s inner city stores operate throughout the night, closing for only a few hours in the morning before raising their shutters again.

Nine stores, including those in Tokyo’s bustling Shinjuku and Roppongi districts, are open 24 hours a day.

The all-night opening hours and the “everything under one roof” concept make the stores a magnet for not only night owls but also busy celebrities.

Heartthrob Takuya Kimura, a member of the popular boy band SMAP, and popular singer Ayumi Hamasaki have been spotted at the Shibuya store.

Last month, American singer Beyonce, who was touring Japan, was reportedly seen at the Roppongi outlet looking over Halloween costumes.

Donki prides itself on being the ‘temple of deep discounts’, an epithet which it splashes across the front of its shops.

In keeping with that reputation, Donki recently introduced its own house brand, which it calls “Zealous Price”, with 148 items such as pre-cooked rice that undercut similar house brand products at rival companies by 20 to 30 per cent.

Don Quijote started out in 1980 as a small retailer in a Tokyo suburb. The first actual Donki store did not appear until 1989 in Fuchu, in the western part of the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Donki founder Takao Yasuda, now 60, wanted to create a new retail model.

That desire is behind the name he chose for his company, for Don Quijote (or Quixote) is the character created by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes who refused to give in to authority and long-held ideas.

Donki has no doubt found a winning formula for its stores, which charge cellphones for free and give away one-yen coins to customers who need them to pay for purchases.

Despite the continuing economic gloom in Japan, Donki has seen its sales go up for 19 straight years through its aggressive expansion policy and its stock is actively bought up by foreign investors.

As one way of getting Japan out of its economic stagnation and also to make Donki stores even more attractive, founder Yasuda has hit upon the idea of creating what he calls “Passionate Shopping Streets” within his stores.

These “streets” aim to replicate the vibrancy of traditional markets where buyers can enjoy the repartee of stallholders and indulge in some haggling.

Donki staged a contest earlier this year to select people yearning to start a food business, grading them not only on their products but also the manner in which they intend to purvey them.

Later this month, eight winners will man in-house stores at the new “Passionate Shopping Street” in Donki’s Misato store in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, selling vegetables, fried chicken, rice balls and other food items.

“Our chairman felt that in these difficult economic times, there must be a lot of young people out there who wish to start a business but cannot do so, and he wants to give them a helping hand,” said a spokesman for Donki.

The eight winners will not have to pay rent for the first six months, after which they will be charged just ¥10,000 (RM376) per 3.3-sq-m of shop space.

If the Misato experience and a similar pilot project in Hakodate in northern Japan prove successful, Donki is likely to extend the “shopping street” concept to stores in Tokyo and elsewhere that have enough space for one. — The Straits Times