Yasutaka Horiuchi
President and CEO

In May 1990, BOOKOFF started out as a 35-tsubo (approximately 116 m2) store in a residential area in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture. We have two corporate philosophies: “contributing to economic and social development through corporate activities,” and “providing opportunities for fulfillment both professionally and personally to all our dedicated employees.” Under these philosophies, BOOKOFF has grown since its founding, and together with some seventy franchisees became a Group that operates more than 800 stores in Japan and abroad. We are also venturing aggressively into the growing reuse market, creating a new reuse channel for high-end customers and expanding our business outside Japan.

During the previous fiscal year ended May 2021, the Group was impacted by the declaration of state of emergency and requests to reduce or suspend store operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We made it our highest priority to implement strict measures to prevent the spread of the disease and to ensure safe and secure business operations. Meanwhile, as the outlook for the future remains uncertain, the Group was forced to make temporary policy changes in all aspects of its business activities, including narrowing down capital investments in order to secure funds.

In such climate, the Group celebrated its 30th anniversary in May 2020. The suspension of operations during the state of emergency declaration in April and May 2020 had huge negative impacts on our business performance. Nevertheless, we were able to close the fiscal year with profit thanks to many customers visiting our stores after full reopening and accessing our online services.

The Group’s main business, BOOKOFF in Japan, accelerated its efforts to pursue the “One BOOKOFF” concept, which aims to improve customer satisfaction by linking in-store and online services across the chain on the customer membership platform. The core mobile app membership base exceeded 3 million users. As a result, we saw increased sales from our e-commerce site BOOKOFF Online, with significant growth in the “store pick-up service” that allows customers to order online and receive at stores. While store operations are still restricted, the fruit of our past efforts provided sound support for the Group’s performance.

The other business domains, including HUGALL (for high-end customers) and aidect (repair and remake of jewelry), were forced to endure a tough business climate as their stores’ host department stores and commercial facilities were suspended or reduced operation. Meanwhile, our overseas businesses in the United States and Malaysia also faced headwinds due to lockdown imposed by state governments and municipalities, but made steady progress in preparing for future business expansions.

The fiscal year ending May 2022 marks the start of a new decade for the 30-year-old Group, and we position this year to focus on responding to the changes in consumer behaviors that occurred this past year, and taking actions that will lead to further growth. We will take aggressive measures to increase IT investments over store investments; develop a business operation platform to support the steady growth of our core business BOOKOFF; and expand into domains that are expected to grow in the future, including reuse business other than BOOKOFF (HUGALL and aidect, just to name a few), and overseas businesses in the United States and Malaysia. Through these initiatives, we will continue to move forward to become a leading company with the largest customer base in the reuse market.

The Group’s mission is to “Be a source of enjoyable and enriching lives for as many people as possible” based on our reuse business. We will develop a stable revenue base and continue our challenge to enter new business domains to achieve sustainable growth.

We appreciate your continuing understanding and support.