Ranking Ranqueen | Update

Earlier this year, we wrote about Japanese retailer Ranking Ranqueen, which takes a radical approach to sales. Every product in the store is part of a top 3, 5 or 10 list. Whether it’s the top 3 bath powders, the top 5 nose hair removers, or the top 10 pasta sauces. Popularity and ranking are based on sales data from parent company Tokyu’s department stores, and numbers from independent research companies. Needless to say, the store is an excellent place to survey the latest consumer fads and crazes. Ranking Ranqueen takes curated consumption to an extreme, and caters to people’s love of numbered lists (to see how popular lists are online, just check out web buzz tracker popurls.com). The stores are tiny, and located in high traffic areas like train and subway stations. Although Ranking Ranqueen hasn’t released sales figures, Tokyu recently announced that monthly revenue per store is up 10 to 20 percent over the past year, and there are plans to double the number of stores to 15 by 2008. Time to bring the concept to the rest of the world?!