nearly 500 stores<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf you can make it in Southern California, that’s great,\u201d said David Marcotte, senior vice president of global retail and technology at Kantar and an author of the NRF list.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788612997_98_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A 99 Ranch market opened in 2023 in Eastvale.<\/p>\n
(<\/p>\n
Gina Ferazzi<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n
)<\/p>\n
Marcotte says succeeding in California\u2019s highly competitive retail market can teach chains lessons that translate elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stone-cold reason is quality. The second one is experience,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are the two things that when shoppers go into any retailer, they\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daiso ranks third, with growth of nearly 26%, while another Japanese company, Fast Retailing \u2014 the parent company of Uniqlo \u2014 comes in sixth.<\/p>\n
99 Ranch Market, an American supermarket chain founded in Orange County that specializes in Asian groceries, comes in 15th.<\/p>\n
Marcotte says Southern California has been a logical landing spot for these companies because of its proximity to Asia. But Marcotte says it can also be an unforgiving place to launch because of the competition, and he often encourages the clients he advises to consider smaller markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said if you open in Southern California, open one store, get it right,\u201d Marcotte said. \u201cIf you get it wrong, you’re dead. You’ll never recover. You’ll have to leave the country and come back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The supermarket industry is particularly tough to break into because customers here, he says, have plenty of alternatives if the quality, selection or experience falls short.<\/p>\n
He also emphasizes a retailer in California focused on Asian goods will see more success serving Chinese, Filipino and other Asian customers rather than designing around a particular ethnic group, Marcotte said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat type of diversity of Asian customers that you have to address in the same store is what really proves to be the difference for an Asian retailer in the California market,\u201d Marcotte said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of the business model for 99 Ranch, which was founded by a Taiwanese immigrant who opened the first location in Westminster’s Little Saigon in 1984. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern Californians who\u2019ve long shopped at Daiso, Miniso, Uniqlo or 99 Ranch Market may not be surprised to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[179551,179552,48,52,51,47,50,49,173795,26545],"class_list":["post-454507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-99-ranch","tag-asian-retailers","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-miniso","tag-uniqlo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}