The Uniqlo flagship store in mainland China, located on Nanjing West Road in Shanghai, accounts for an impressive 10% of the total sales of all Uniqlo stores in mainland China. Store manager Zhu Wei can be considered a witness to Uniqlo's journey in China. However, there is something that has always weighed heavily on his mind.
Back in 2003, when Zhu Wei first became an ordinary store clerk at the Uniqlo Zhongshan Park branch in Shanghai, every morning he would meticulously and repeatedly clean the shop window glass. One morning, as a mother and daughter passed by the store, the mother said to her three or four-year-old daughter: "If you don't study hard in the future, you will end up like him..." The mother pointed at Zhu Wei, implying the rest.
This mother expressed a unique prejudice present in Chinese society. In this era that values self-actualization, jobs such as "selling clothes" are difficult to gain respect from mainstream values. Moreover, as part of the traditional retail industry, "boring and monotonous" is the feeling of most employees in this field. Due to the perception of lacking technical content and being "something anyone can do," wages have remained low for a long time.
On the other hand, modern retail in China has not developed for more than 20 years, and various reasons have led to a lack of excellent talent at all levels in China's retail industry. "Currently, the biggest challenge for fast fashion clothing retail in China is the shortage of talent," Zhou Long, General Manager of Me&City, told *Global Entrepreneur*.
For Pan Ning, the top priority this year is to reserve talents for the upcoming rapid expansion of stores. This year, 300 university graduates joined Uniqlo, and everyone started as frontline store clerks, advancing based on their abilities. The practical reason to encourage new employees to work hard is very straightforward: improving the quality of life. "If you don't have enough money, you can only drink plain water; if you have more money, you can drink soy milk; if you have even more money, you can drink milk; and if you have a lot of money, you can buy a cow to get fresh milk," Zhu Wei said to *Global Entrepreneur*. "I encourage newcomers to say, let's work hard so we can drink fresh milk every day."
To prevent simple and monotonous work from extinguishing enthusiasm, Uniqlo provides a transparent and detailed promotion system. Through unified educational tools, on-the-job training (OJT) plans are implemented. Promotions and exams at the same level have standardized interviews, and the interview criteria are rigorous and meticulous. "At Uniqlo, black is black, white is white, wrong is wrong, and right is right," Zhu Wei said: "It's a completely fair, merit-based company."
In Uniqlo's operations in China, 40% of store managers are like Zhu Wei, having been promoted from regular employees, with incomes ten times or more than what they were as clerks, breaking the curse of low income in the retail industry. At Uniqlo, store managers are seen as the company's "highest operators." "Without a management mechanism where store managers are the main characters of the company, it's hard for the retail industry to flourish," Yanai Tadashi believes. In 1998, when Uniqlo was deeply mired in declining performance in Japan, Yanai Tadashi foresaw that the company’s fate would be dire if things continued as they were. He initiated a reform, one part of which was "management should not be dominated by the company headquarters but centered around stores; store managers are the main characters of the company."
Many middle and upper-level executives at the company headquarters also originated from stores, Pan Ning himself being a model of advancement within Uniqlo: "I've been with the company for 16 years. I started by cleaning at a Uniqlo store in Japan, greeting customers, folding clothes, repeating these tasks every day."
It is reported that Uniqlo recruited 1,500 graduates globally this year, with 1,200 coming from countries outside Japan. "I hope to train them into middle-level managers who can set and achieve goals, and also influence the entire company's work. This must be implemented, immediately and definitely," Yanai Tadashi said.
Meritocracy is just one motivation for employee self-drive; at Uniqlo, a "gratitude" culture forms the foundation for increasing sales and enhancing the brand.
Like other fast-fashion brands, Uniqlo adopts a self-service shopping method (Help Yourself), where salespeople do not provide advice next to consumers. This shopping method is common in the West, but many Chinese consumers are not accustomed to it. They still habitually seek help from salespeople, asking about colors, sizes, etc.
Implementing this shopping method in China poses high demands on store service quality, often overlooked by European and American clothing brands. In the first half of this year, the ZARA brand was criticized multiple times by consumer associations due to quality issues and discrepancies between price tags and actual prices. According to insiders from ZARA who spoke to *Global Entrepreneur*, the real reason for the multiple complaints this year was attributed to "insufficient service," which accumulated consumer dissatisfaction.
But implementing the "customer is God" "truth" is easier said than done, often meaning that all employees must share the same mindset, continuously repeating detailed and tedious work, and sometimes even endure grievances. Zhu Wei told *Global Entrepreneur* that in stores, the most challenging aspect of employee service attitude is folding clothes. Clothes folded neatly can be opened again by customers, who briefly glance at them for a few seconds before casually tossing them back on the shelves. Without strict training, it would be hard for employees to endure this. However, at Uniqlo, employees are required to smile and quickly fold the clothes again, while using peripheral vision to check if there are any customers nearby to avoid disturbing their selection process.
Rigorous training leads to refined service. Pan Ning remarked that many employees abandon their positions midway due to Uniqlo's "almost stringent requirements."
To train employees to smile, Uniqlo has designed a "chopstick biting" exercise: an employee bites chopsticks, with paper covering their eyes, allowing other employees to experience that without the smile in the eyes, merely shaping the mouth into a smile is ineffective. To train employees to form the habit of folding clothes, their wardrobes are regularly inspected. "If one cannot even organize their own wardrobe well, it's hard to imagine providing good service to customers in the store," Zhu Wei said.
Even with intensive training, the reserved personalities of Chinese people and the coarse service philosophy still hinder service quality. When store managers or team leaders notice that employees do not proactively offer shopping baskets to customers, they immediately point it out and require the employee to work alongside the manager for three minutes. "Is my work good? Watch how I offer shopping baskets to customers, watch my smile. This is a genuine smile; this is serving the customer."
Every Friday, the headquarters sends a dedicated inspection team to each store to check merchandise displays, shopping environments, poster postings, and finally provide feedback to the store manager. Pan Ning occasionally conducts surprise inspections of the stores. Zhu Wei recalls that during a Monday meeting, Pan Ning publicly criticized the Nanjing West Road store. "When I went to the store to buy a shirt, I found the product sizes incomplete. When I stood in front of the shelf flipping through items, the employee was busy with their own work and did not greet me saying 'Good morning.'"
Under strict training, Uniqlo store clerks must loudly shout "Welcome!" to every customer, regardless of whether the customer responds; if a customer picks up clothes, the employee must immediately fetch a shopping basket and hand it to the customer. Normally, only one or two cash registers are activated, but once the queue increases, an employee will quickly run over and activate another register. On rainy days, employees will add a transparent plastic bag over the "Uniqlo" paper packaging bag to prevent it from getting wet—everything is meticulously detailed.
"You must give customers something beyond their expectations to become their loyal fans. Every day, you treat your customers well, make them satisfied, and let them buy a piece of clothing, from which we earn a small profit. Accumulating wealth from simple repetitive work is how you receive your reward," Pan Ning motivates employees in this way.
Cultivating a grateful heart also accumulates like drops forming a river. At Uniqlo, employees receive a gift at the end of each training session: a DVD recording their laughter and tears during the training, watched collectively on the last day. At the end of each training, everyone receives a "Thank You Card" from others: "Hello, these past few days of training have helped me greatly." Going through rigorous training together, helping each other, builds friendships—"Almost everyone cries." Zhu Wei said: "The service industry is extremely hard, employees must know that even for the smallest thing, they need to thank others to the fullest extent."
Zhu Wei often works alongside employees moving shelves: "This isn't just simply moving shelves, but expressing gratitude to the employees." When employees expend effort adjusting the layout of goods or increase sales, Zhu Wei praises them publicly at the morning meeting: "Because of your efforts yesterday, the products sold very well, it was very impressive."
Such small but persistent practices have accumulated Uniqlo's high-quality service, which Yanai Tadashi views as the sole path to achieving "world number one." "We often talk to employees about world-class standards," Pan Ning said: "Then the corresponding service should be the best."
Article source: Uniqlo Taobao Flagship Store, Women's Spring Clothing on Taobao, Women's Summer Clothing on Taobao Original Address: http://www.baiduhou.com/uniqlo/359.html Please indicate the source when reprinting!
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