Yasutaka Horiuchi
President and CEO

In 1990, BOOKOFF opened its first store in a residential area of Sagamihara in Kanagawa prefecture and had a floor area of about 115 square meters. Guided by the corporate philosophies of “contributing to society through our business activities” and “providing affluence and spiritual well-being for all employees,” BOOKOFF has grown steadily with approximately 70 partner companies that operate franchised stores. Today, the BOOKOFF Group has approximately 800 stores in Japan and other countries. As the reuse market expanded, we have targeted many opportunities for growth with measures such as starting a reuse business for affluent and high-net-worth customers and starting operations outside Japan.

In the fiscal year that ended in May 2022, we conducted our business operations while implementing strict measures for the safety of customers and employees as the pandemic continued. Rapid changes are occurring in consumption trends and behavior. To adapt to these changes, there were major renovations of existing stores, activities to further increase the number of customers, primarily by using the membership app, and activities for building a powerful base for growth, mainly expenditures for rebuilding the IT services infrastructure.
The core BOOKOFF business in Japan continued to use activities linking physical stores and internet services, mainly for increasing the number of members, with the goal of implementing the “One BOOKOFF” concept in order to further increase customer satisfaction. There are now more than 5 million app members, which are the key component of the BOOKOFF business.
Another significant activity is large expenditures for store renovations, mainly at BOOKOFF SUPER BAZAAR stores. Renovations are aimed at increasing sales of apparel, a category impacted by the need to limit outings during the pandemic and by climate changes, and quickly expand activities involving trading cards, a market that has been growing rapidly in the past few years. Our activities to provide more convenience for customers, chiefly by using the membership app, make stores more appealing and upgrade store operations resulted in 12 consecutive months of year-on-year growth of monthly sales at existing stores.
HUGALL and one-stop purchasing consultation desks, which are reuse businesses for affluent and high-net-worth, and one-stop purchasing consultation desks held special events for purchasing used items at stores as well as at shopping centers. The aim is to increase the volume of purchases as well as to confirm that there is sufficient latent demand for adding more locations and to establish a model for new stores. Outside Japan, there was a big increase in sales in the United States, where consumer activity has quickly returned to normal. Sales recovered rapidly in Malaysia too despite temporary lockdowns as business activities resumed.

Our plan is to position the fiscal year ending in May 2023 as a period for speeding up the growth of our businesses even as the pandemic continues. The BOOKOFF business in Japan will use the benefits of store renovations during the past two years and the sound customer base centered on app members for numerous activities. Plans include resuming the addition of new BOOKOFF SUPER BAZAAR stores and adding a new type of BOOKOFF store with emphasis on trading cards and hobby products. For HUGALL and one-stop purchasing consultation desks, will increase the number of locations in central Tokyo, department stores and other places to target the middle to high income segments. We also plan to open more stores in the United States and Malaysia, open more Japan TCG Centers, a new trading card specialty store we launched in 2021, and increase investments in all of our diverse store businesses. All of our activities are focused on meeting customers’ needs in order to continue growing.
We have been many investments for many years to strengthen our IT infrastructure. We plan to rebuild the BOOKOFF Online e-commerce site and start using a new IT system for BOOKOFF store operations. Our goal is building an infrastructure capable of supporting growth for many more years.
Taking these actions will enable us to advance step by step with accomplishing our mission, centered on the reuse business, of “being a source of an enjoyable and prosperous life for many people.” We will continue to focus on this goal in order to become a corporate group that can achieve consistent earnings growth.
Thank you for your understanding and support.