London's Mitsukoshi

Mitsukoshi is one of Japan's upmarket departmental stores like the in-between of Marks and Spencer and Selfridges. I would say it's more Selfridges than M&S.


To Malaysians, Mitsukoshi is like the Isetan. In fact, both of these stores have merged under one management last year.

In London, Mitsukoshi is tucked away at the southern end of Regent Street. Unless you go looking for it, the store can exist but stay unnoticed forever.

Last week I went to check out the store. To my surprise, a large proportion of the customers were Japanese. The sales assistants were mostly Japanese and greet "Japanese looking" customers in their language. The entire building were even signposted in Japanese! One would never have guessed I took these photos in London:

And as usual, even the translated English is unpolished

I felt like I was in Japan again. The customer service counter also mimicked the Mitsukoshi stores in Japan.

This place is catered for Japanese tourists wanting to buy European branded products especially British ones like the Burberry and Aquascutum.

Mostly Japanese tourists

Burberry displayed like a cheap brand here! What a mockery!

At first it didn't make sense. The items were not any cheaper and sales not any better. Why would people want to buy their Burberry in a small store like that?

Japanese flock here to get their branded goods

Japan is one of the most homogeneous countries in the world. That's why you can never find such a mix like an "Indian Japanese" or "British Japanese". Japanese look and talk the same. And when it comes to foreign language, they'd struggle. When the tourists in Mitsukoshi started communicating in Japanese with the sales assistants, it became clear that the only reason Mitsukoshi existed is for Japanese to shop in an environment which they can understand and be understood.

Unless there is a revolution to communication technology where a device is able to capture and translate the language of the speaker into the ears of the listener a language they can understand and vice versa, this is how Japanese tourists will shop and this is how Japanese stores will have their customers in a foreign country.