We invite you to sample our product before you purchase it. We pride ourselves on producing top quality stainless steel flatware with various price points. Please browse our product section to see our foodservice patterns. Be the first to know about sales, special offers, new products and company news. We respect your email privacy. Skip to main content. Proudly Made in the U.
Save with promo code givethanks21 during checkout. Thanksgiving Sale. Save with promo code holidays15 during checkout. November Pattern of the Month. Get it in Time. See Shipping Deadlines. Mikasa, a division of Lifetime Brands, Inc. Quality and great design have been synonymous with the Mikasa brand name for over a half-century.
In , the brand name Mikasa was introduced to the American public. Blake and a group of senior executives, who each held small investment stakes in the company, were ready to significantly increase their financial investment in the company. The LBO, completed in , was a sign of the executives' faith in Mikasa's future, but to their chagrin, outside influences conspired against the new owners shortly after the deal was concluded.
In , Japan's currency began to appreciate quickly against the U. To make matters worse, U. The net effect was fewer china departments within department stores nationwide, delivering a second pernicious blow to Mikasa's business. The future would have looked even bleaker had Mikasa's group of executive-owners known the tableware industry was destined for a decade-long slump.
Between the mids and mids, the "tabletop" industry, which included flatware, cups, saucers, plates, crystal, serving platters, and Christmas plates, recorded little growth. Although the company did not escape the s without experiencing several difficult years, strident growth arrived as the s began, thanks in large part to the measures taken by Blake. His response to the growing strength of Japanese currency was crucial to the company's trend-bucking success.
Blake moved some of Mikasa's production out of Japan to low-cost, contract operations in Malaysia, Thailand, and Yugoslavia, essentially doing what Nike did during the early s to record prolific growth in a lackluster industry. While other chinamakers struggled to make money in the face of rising labor and operating costs incurred from their own factories, Mikasa thrived mainly because it owned no factories. The company contracted its designs to other manufacturers and prospered, while many of its competitors were held in check by escalating overhead.
The cost-savings realized from outsourcing production also gave Mikasa another important advantage, namely, flexibility. The company could quickly increase production volume on popular patterns and quickly abandon designs that failed to impress customers. Additionally, enhanced flexibility in production enabled Mikasa to churn out a greater diversity of patterns than many of its competitors. With a larger number of designs introduced into the market each year, the company's odds for success increased, frequently putting Mikasa on the leading edge of emerging trends.
Blake also began to emphasize the expansion of the company's outlet stores, which reduced the reliance on department stores and strengthened Mikasa's brand identity. The first relied on Mikasa's production flexibility. When the company identified a popular design from one of its numerous pattern introductions in a given year, it would quickly orchestrate the production of the particular design on a number of supplementary products, such as servers, carafes, napkin rings, and butter dishes--occasionally branching far afield by adorning the popular pattern on non-tableware items such as picture frames.
The other two areas of emphasis that fueled the company's rise were international expansion and the expansion of its network of retail stores. In , Mikasa formed a joint marketing venture named Mikasa Europe Distribution with a German partner to market the company's products in Europe. As the s progressed, Mikasa intensified its efforts overseas, adding a relatively small yet growing facet to its operations. A greater contributor than international sales to the company's revenue growth during the s was the company's chain of factory outlet stores.
As their numbers grew, providing a means to dispose of excess inventory, the retail stores became increasingly important to Mikasa's well-being, accounting for roughly half of the company's total sales by the early s. Between and years that encompassed a nationwide economic recession--Mikasa's sales increased at a compound annual rate of By this point, Mikasa sold its cups, saucers, plates, crystal, and other dinnerware items through independent distributors in eight countries.
0コメント