Shop Development Summer of Motherhouse
The dream after a dream
"My dream is to display bags with "Made in Bangladesh" tag at a department store in Japan!" This is what Eriko Yamaguchi dreamed of at the time she founded Motherhouse. When it had passed a year since the business started, the first dream had come true. At that time, Motherhouse had produced 60 variations on its products in types. Yamaguchi, then, started thinking about opening a "Motherhouse shop". Yamazaki and Yazaki, new employees in Japan, thought about the same idea.
"I want to meet with the customers and learn the first-hand of their voices! I want to see how the customers respond to our products!"
More and more wholesalers made contracts with Motherhouse, but there were still only a few opportunities of face-to-face interaction with customers.
Every time Yamaguchi sent bangs to wholesalers, she asked herself,
"How do customers think about Motherhouse bags?"
"How do customers feel when they carry Motherhouse bags?"
Such question was inevitably-linked to the idea to open a shop.
"OK, let’s open a shop!"
When Yamaguchi decided so, Yazaki, the third member of Motherhouse, joined the company. It was the end of April.
They started from looking for a place to open a shop. The place would be an important site for Motherhouse since the shop which would be opened there is the 1st flagship shop of Motherhouse. Yamazaki, the future vice-president of Motherhouse, wanted to open a shop in a fashionable area, so they looked for a place in cultured areas, such as Aoyama, Omotesando, Daikanyama, Jiyugaoka, Kichijouji, etc. They, yet, realized that it was much more difficult to find a place than they had expected. Since none of them had any experience in such task, they had no idea how long did it take to find a place.
Yazaki walked around Jiyugaoka in that day. She had visited almost all real-estate companies, she could not find one. Sometimes she found a good place, yet such place required a deposit of ten million yen. She gave a big sigh. Since she worked as in sales in the previous job, she thought she was tough. Yet, at this time, she felt tired.
She once found a place which seemed to be good for Motherhouse shop. However, Yamaguchi rejected it out of hand, saying,
"That place is not quite convincing."
Considering cost and conditions, she thought that place was a pretty good choice. Of course, she understood that Yamaguchi had the final say, but Yazaki was little bit angry about the quick reject. She felt like it would take forever to find a place Yamaguchi would like.
