What I Want You to Learn from This Lesson

Today, we’re going to look at the coffee sold inside MUJI stores and learn an important marketing lesson: don’t judge a product only by the revenue it generates on its own.

At some MUJI locations in Japan, customers can buy self-service coffee for just ¥100 a cup. At first, you might wonder, “How much profit can MUJI really make from a ¥100 cup of coffee?” But from a marketing perspective, there is a much bigger idea behind it.

A customer buys a cup of coffee and takes a short break. That means the customer spends more time inside the store. While there, the customer may browse food, stationery, clothing, household goods, furniture, or books and discover something they never planned to buy.

Coffee
↓
Longer Dwell Time
↓
More Product Exposure
↓
Impulse Purchases
↓
Higher Average Transaction Value

The important point is that the objective may not simply be to sell coffee. Creating a store where customers want to spend time can potentially increase sales across the entire store.

In this lesson, we’ll use MUJI’s coffee strategy to explore an important shift in modern retail: from a place that sells products to a place where customers want to spend time.

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