MUJI closes its largest store location in Metro Vancouver

MUJI store permanently closed at Guildford Town Centre mall in Surrey. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Almost exactly four years after the grand opening, MUJI has permanently closed its largest Metro Vancouver store location in Surrey’s Guildford Town Centre shopping mall.

The Japanese clothing and household goods retailer suddenly closed its Surrey location earlier this summer.

Daily Hive Urbanized reached out to MUJI Canada and Guildford Town Centre for comment last week, but they did not respond to our requests. This leaves a considerably sized vacancy at the mall.

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This past spring, MUJI also closed its location at Mississauga’s Square One shopping centre.

MUJI first opened at Guildford Town Centre in June 2020 within a highly prominent location fronting the main atrium, replacing a previous small pop-up location at the mall.

With 15,800 sq ft of space over two levels, the Guildford Town Centre store was not only Metro Vancouver’s largest MUJI store location, but also the retailer’s second-largest location in Canada at the time after the downtown Toronto flagship store.

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MUJI store permanently closed at Guildford Town Centre mall in Surrey. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

MUJI entered the Metro Vancouver market by opening its first store at Metropolis at Metrotown mall in Burnaby in August 2017, in a 7,700 sq ft space that was quickly expanded to 12,300 sq ft with a flagship status in October 2018 due to high demand.

The chain’s second Metro Vancouver store opened on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver in December 2017, in a 14,500 sq ft space that was MUJI’s largest international store outside of Asia at the time.

The company now has three stores in Metro Vancouver, including a 6,300 sq ft location at CF Richmond Centre that opened in 2018 and quickly expanded to 9,200 sq ft in 2019. With the recent closures, MUJI has six locations in Canada, with the other three located within Greater Toronto.

According to MUJI’s latest annual global report, the company has 1,251 stores worldwide as of August 2023, including 19 stores in North America.

The company reported JP¥581 billion in operating revenue for the 2022/2023 fiscal year, far exceeding every year since at least the 2019/2020 fiscal year.

In the latest fiscal year, it also spent JP¥26 billion on capital investments, such as store expansion, which represents a high since 2019/2020. In 2022/2023, household goods were the leading operating revenue source (44.7%), followed by apparel (38.3%) and food products (12.9%).

“In North America and Europe, our stores until now have been very small, and MUJI’s philosophy and product selection have not been fully communicated. We need to launch large flagship stores and promote understanding of the MUJI concept,” reads the company’s annual report.

MUJI’s operations in Asia also include cafes, hotels, and even campsites.

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