Gaia Series 20 : The First Combined Store Of Hands And Cainz
The rebranding and transformation of Japan's popular department store "Tokyu Hands" to "Hands" after being acquired by well-known hardware store Cainz in 2022 is the focus of this week's episode.
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This week, we shine the spotlight on a well-known department store, Tokyu Hands. It was established 47 years ago and has a presence in urban areas like Shinjuku, with more than 60 stores nationwide. It offers a whole range of products, with the store in Shinjuku boasting more than 110,000 items. Its first store was in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. Its parent company is Tokyu Land Corporation. Due to rival companies, online shopping and the COVID-19 pandemic, its sales have plummeted over the past few years.
In March 2022, major hardware store Cainz acquired Tokyu Hands. A press conference was held in October 2022 where a new logo was introduced and Tokyu Hands was rebranded as Hands. Furthermore, the president of Cainz, Masayuki Takaya, assumed the role of chairman of Hands.
Cainz headquarters are located in Honjo City, Saitama Prefecture. Cainz is part of Beisia Group, a Gunma-based supermarket. The Beisia Group also manages other businesses like convenience stores and home appliance stores. Cainz stores are mainly found in the suburbs of the Kanto region. As Tokyu Hands has stores in the city and urban areas in different regions, the acquisition has given Cainz the opportunity to make a presence in cities for the first time.
In July 2022, Mr Takaya visited the Hands headquarters in Shinjuku to speak to the employees. Among them was Ms Yuka Matsunaga, the "Chief of Hands Renewal Promotion Office". Her goal was to rebrand Hands.
The flagship Hands Shinjuku store takes up seven floors and it ranks first in the number of visitors and revenue. The company decided to renovate it and reopen in late June. Ms Matsunaga visited a newly opened Cainz store in Fussa City, Tokyo, to get some ideas. She saw that the items are lined up cleanly all the way to the top, so that customers can see the vast variety of products available.
The renovations for the Shinjuku store started and Ms Matsunaga put in place the display style she learned at Cainz. The shelves were made taller to display and show many more items. After the renovations, nearly 20 corners were also set up across all floors where customers can touch and test the products and experience them firsthand. Examples are a stationery corner, a makeup corner and even a coffee grinder corner.
Cainz stores are usually spacious and they have a large selection of items. The company decided to open a store in a section of the renovated Hands Shinjuku store, its first store in the city. This store will be managed by Mr Yuji Sone. Cainz stores in the suburbs are 10,000 square metres in size, while the Shinjuku store is only 950 square metres. A trial Cainz store was set up on the eighth floor of the Shinjuku store. To tackle the space issue, the Cainz store was separated into four large zones with the different themes of "Sparkling", Imagination", "Neat” and "Deep Sleep. For example, the theme of the “Neat” zone is storage and organisation. At Cainz, floor chairs and cushions are sold in the home decor corner and the plants to decorate the walls are sold in the greenery corner. One must go to different sections to assemble everything. But since this is a set theme at the Shinjuku store, customers can buy everything from one place.
The Shinjuku store reopened on Jun 29 after renovations, with a new brand name of Cainz Hands Shinjuku store. Ms Matsunaga created more key areas, such as the knife corner. Mr Yuji Sakai is one of the knife experts employed as dedicated staff members for the corner. There is also a specialist in the leather products corner - Masayuki Kamikura, who knows everything about leather. Meanwhile, on the eighth floor of the Cainz Hands Shinjuku store, Cainz's first store in the city is a compact store with products organised into zones with four different themes. Cainz and Hands also collaborated on a new corner on the sixth floor. “Hands Do” is a workshop where you can make knickknacks like colourful acrylic coasters. Both Cainz employees and Hands’ employees cooperate to conduct the workshops. In the first two weeks after the reopening of the Shinjuku store, the number of visitors increased by 1.3 times.
Tips:
1) Nearly 20 “test and experience” corners have been set up at the Cainz Hands Shinjuku store
2) The Cainz Hands Shinjuku store has product specialists stationed at areas such as the knife and leather corners
