Japanese Shop returns to the high street

The business, which was originally opened by Jez Willard and his wife, Hiromi, in York, won Small Business Of the Year and the overall Business Of The Year prizes at The Press Business Awards in 2004, and also won Best Shop in the York Tourism Awards in 2006.

In 2008, it made record sales of over £1.1 million in 2008 from its three shops in Harrogate, York and Chester. But then, between 2008 and 2009, the pound halved in value versus the Japanese yen.

It doubled the cost of the Japanese Shop’s goods and, within four months, pushed the company into liquidation.

Jez Willard, founder and managing director, said: “It was like being hit by an economic tsunami.

“In January 2009 I lost my father Nick, who worked with us, to lung cancer, had to make redundant all but one of our 23 wonderful staff and then lost our business, which my wife, Hiromi, and I had built over the last ten years. We were completely devastated.”

Just one month later and now with no household income, Jez and Hiromi turned one of their bedrooms into a store room, another into a small office and agreed a deal with the administrators to buy back the stock and the website. The Japanese Shop, became purely an online retailer and began trading in February 2009.

Hiromi said: “In a strange way we were quite excited. We had built a successful business once and were very determined that we could do it again.”

In a strange twist of fate the weak pound has helped to boost exports which now account for about 25 per cent of the company’s sales and it has shipped orders to nearly 50 countries in the last three years.

The company now has several wholesale and corporate accounts, recently winning a large order from Proctor & Gamble, and has now opened a new showroom at Harrogate Business Centre, in Hookstone Avenue.

The business has also invested in a new multi-currency, multi-language website platform which will go live next month in a bid to become the market leader for Japanese gifts in Europe.