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Every Thursday, Hiroshi Takeda changes out of his fashionable finery and Margiela Tabi sneakers into a conservative navy suit before making his way to a private kindergarten in Minato, a well-heeled district of Tokyo. He’s there to pick up the children of one of his clients, and the school enforces a strict dress code for students and parents alike: nothing non-navy, nothing oversized and nothing with ruffles. “And definitely no Margiela,” says Takeda.
Takeda is not a particularly stylish au pair. Instead, he works in the business of gaisho, Japan’s elite personal shoppers. He’s one of the staff at Restir, a boutique in Roppongi that caters to Japan’s rich and fashionable. Takeda’s work days involve personally curating items for his clients, meeting them for lunch or delivering a rail of new season clothes to their homes for them to try on. And, of course, doing the school run.
“It took a long time to get to that point and to build up trust,” says Takeda. Aged 40, he’s held his role for 17 years and has forged strong bonds with his clients, whose ages range from late-20s to mid-70s and include celebrities, retired CEOs and stay-at-home spouses with large houses in the city. They mostly buy ready-to-wear and are increasingly interested in luxury skincare. One of his larger gaisho households has recently taken to ordering Bio+Science’s Eleven Essence, a placenta-derived serum that promises beatific skin and costs JPY 55,000 (£288) for a bottle that lasts 10 days per person. “The whole family uses it,” says Takeda.
A strong history
The term gaisho translates literally to ‘outside sales’, and dates back to Japan’s Edo period when prominent kimono merchants and department store staff would visit the homes of wealthy samurai families to kit them out in the latest designs. In 2024, the core of the service is much the same, and kimonos are still in demand, albeit with less popularity — gaisho staff today are more likely to present their clients with Patek Philippe watches or Jacquemus handbags than Tomioka silks. The service has also extended to exclusive events, personal styling and a concierge service that procures jewellery, art and furniture from abroad.
Gaisho is big business in Japan, with many select shops and department stores reporting ever-larger shares of their sales originating from VIP spenders. Restir estimates that over a third of its sales now come from gaisho clients. Daimaru Matsuzakaya group (which runs the Daimaru and Matsuzakaya department stores and is a subsidiary of J Front Retailing) reports that gaisho sales were up 7 per cent in the first half of 2023 from the previous year; now making up 27 per cent of total sales, with further increases expected.
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During the same period, the number of people who make annual purchases north of JPY 10 million (£50,000) has shot up by 40 per cent. “It’s increased to an extent that we haven’t seen before,” says Seo Nozomi, gaisho, CRM and sales manager for Daimaru Matsuzakaya, which employs some 650 gaisho staff across its 15 stores.
This popularity is partly driven by an uptick in younger gaisho clients. The share of gaisho services for people under the age of 49 at department store chain Isetan rose to 28.9 per cent in 2021, up from 23.6 per cent in 2020; while at Daimaru Matsuzakaya, the number of gaisho customers aged between 20 and 49 increased from 20.4 per cent in 2020 to 29.5 per cent in 2022.
Becoming gaisho
Though the world of gaisho is all about discretion, the process of becoming a client is simple: you must spend a lot of money. At Restir, that usually means upwards of JPY 10 million per season, though the figure may vary depending on the store and the client. To qualify for gaisho services at larger department stores, VIP clients must generally apply for a special credit card.
“We look at things like annual income and occupation, and we have internal standards as a company [as to who can become a gaisho client], but there is not a fixed annual income line. Even young doctors may be able to join,” says Nozomi. However, she adds, the final decision lies with the bank. “There are cases where even if we want to make someone a gaisho client, if their card application is not accepted, then we unfortunately have to refuse them,” she says.
Shina, a 51-year-old gaisho client, was invited by Isetan to its gaisho programme after spending over JPY 40 million (£200,000) on a couple of Persian carpets for her Tokyo home. The store card comes with benefits like a generous points system plus free parking. “It’s kind of a status to become a gaisho, like having an [American Express] Centurion card,” she says.
A sense of exclusivity
The period of the pandemic was instrumental in changing the consumer behaviour of Japan’s wealthy spenders. According to statistics from McKinsey, the years between 2019 and 2021 saw the net financial assets of the affluent and ultra-affluent in Japan increase by 9.3 per cent, with the number of ultra-affluent households increasing by 3,000 — and affluent households by 155,000. “A long-term factor we see is the emergence of new affluent households as a key driving factor of gaisho’s revived popularity,” says Yasufumi Tozuka, a partner at McKinsey.
Lockdowns served as a catalyst for an increased focus on personalised services, with many high-end stores selling to their highest-spending clients at a time when no one was leaving their homes. “The pandemic was definitely a big part of it,” says Timothy Connor, Tokyo-based CEO of Synnovate Advisory, who specialises in helping brands enter the Japanese market. “There was a greater interest in convenience, delivery and better service,” he says. The exclusive nature of the gaisho services also played a role. “People like getting special access to things that others don’t have access to.”
Reduced foot traffic also prompted retailers to refine their strategies when targeting VIP consumers, says Tozuka. They have developed concierge services, including luxury travel planning, interior design, foreign car sales, real estate and financial services. It’s a way for stores to make their clients “feel valued”, he says. Events have become more commonplace. Over at Daimaru Matsuzakaya, the gaisho team organises exclusive shopping events, private trunk shows at luxury hotels or invite-only dinners with famous chefs. “There are many customers who value being invited to events. It gives them a sense of status,” says Nozomi.
Luxury players have even begun to include private salons in their store layouts. The Hermès store in the swanky new Azabudai Hills development features a salon, only accessible by elevator, complete with fresh flowers and plush orange sofas. Clients can sip champagne while they shop in privacy. In 2023, Iwataya, a department store in Fukuoka owned by Isetan Mitsukoshi, opened Lounge S, an invitation-only space for its highest-spending customers. “VIP rooms and salons provide a sense of exclusivity and comfort, which cannot be obtained through online channels,” says Tozuka. He adds that invite-only spaces function as “networking chambers”, which in turn foster a sense of community.
The privacy around these exclusive spaces is intense, and in some cases their existence is kept confidential from all but the highest spenders. One VIP client recounts how an acquaintance uploaded photos of a top gaisho room of a department store to social media. A fallout ensued. “It caused a lot of trouble because other clients started asking why they weren’t invited into that room, and the sales manager lost their position,” the client recalls.
Two sides of gaisho
According to retailers, gaisho clients can generally be split into two types. The first are the very wealthy, or asset rich, who use gaisho as a concierge service to procure rare items, such as art or jewellery. Shopper Shina falls into this camp. “I’ve mostly used gaisho to buy watches or things I can’t find easily in Japan,” she says. “Otherwise, I can just shop online or go directly to the brand. In some cases, it’s easier to just fly to London myself.”
The second type is the cash-rich and time-poor. They are working people or high-powered couples who are too busy to shop leisurely. “These people may not be asset-rich, but they have high incomes and are too busy to keep on top of the trends,” says Toshiyasu Yonemura, a consultant at the Nomura Research Institute. “They might use their smartphones to look at the things they want to buy while on the move, and when they get to the department store, a gaisho merchant will immediately bring it out for them to see. It’s about putting an emphasis on efficiency.”
Yonemura predicts that as the demands of the rich in Japan diversify further, gaisho services will have to adapt to cater to both. Maintaining regular connection with the overworked high-earners may be the bigger challenge. “Stores can’t communicate with these people two or three times a week like they could with gaisho clients in the past,” he says. “I think the challenge for the future is whether the department stores are able to cater to these people.”
Healthy competition
Alongside the race to impress VIPs with rare finds, impressive events and increased convenience, much of the latest competition is playing out online.
At Adelaide, a high-brow boutique in Aoyama, Tokyo, the store has utilised social media to expand its reach beyond the capital to other cities like Osaka. “People were more online during Covid, so we put effort into expanding the e-commerce social media team. We have a lot more VIPs now than five years ago because of that strategy,” says Sakiko Hasegawa, director of Adelaide.
Restir has a dedicated private app for its gaisho clients (as well as previewing items before they hit the shop floor, the app indicates which members of the gaisho service staff are available on any given day), while Daimaru Matsuzakaya has ‘Connaissligne’, a gaisho-exclusive website that sells rare whisky, art and memorabilia among other goods.
“Made-to-order mentaiko (spicy cod roe) is popular, and so are expensive strawberries that are hard to find in stores,” says Nozomi. A recent sale was a baseball uniform signed by Shohei Ohtani, a famous baseball pitcher. “We have a very positive response whenever we put up rare items,” she says.
While social media has been helpful for retailers, increased access to information online has made their clients savvier about which brands they’re purchasing. This, in turn, has raised the bar for staff. “They need to be educated not only in fashion, but they have to have knowledge on the economy, on politics, so that they can talk [to clients],” says Hasegawa. “It’s very difficult to find staff that can be on that level.”
Gaisho staff use social media to connect with their clients, with many using Line, the instant message service. As the boundaries blur between the personal and the professional, managing those relationships can become tricky. “There are so many cases for me where [my client] became a very important part of my life,” Hasegawa continues. “I try to keep reminding myself that they’re spending money, so when it comes to personal shopping, I really have to be professional. Everything I recommend to them has to be authentic.”
Though highly personal, Takeda’s weekly navy-clad pilgrimage to the kindergarten is also part of a professional, if semi-unspoken, transaction. For a favour like that to pass, the gaisho client must first purchase “the right piece” at the store — say, a Moncler polo shirt or a pair of Balenciaga trousers — and thus the debt is repaid. For Takeda, the favour that follows is all in a day’s work. “It’s just something I’m used to,” he says.
Correction: This article was updated to correct the number of stores that Daimaru Matsuzakaya employs gaisho staff across (16/4/24).
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