Chinese retailer Miniso Group will open a flagship New York store and nearly double its U.S. outlets this year, betting post-pandemic shoppers on a budget will snap up cheap but fun goods for homes and work like $10 soft toy cats and $4 staplers shaped like avocados.
At less than 60 outlets, Miniso’s U.S. presence will still be dwarfed by giant low-price retailers like Dollar Tree, as well as its own home Chinese base of nearly 3,000 stores.
But Miniso says it’s moving quickly to take advantage of lower rents in the pandemic-hit U.S. economy, and Vincent Huang, a company vice president responsible for overseas business, told Reuters he ultimately sees potential for “thousands” of U.S. stores.
The plan highlights the vaulting ambition of a company founded just eight years ago. The expansion also comes at a pivotal moment for malls across the United States.
With some 4,800 stores around the world in more than 90 countries, Miniso will have 54 outlets in the United States by the end of this year.
The new stores include the November opening in the recently launched Tangram mall in Flushing, New York – an area known for a vibrant Asian-American community – of Miniso’s first outlet in the city, what Huang called a “flagship” store taking up 3,300 square feet of space.
