The official X account for "Chiikawa" has surpassed 3.8 million followers (as of March 2025) and boasts immense popularity primarily on social media. Its official online store, "Chiikawa Market," opened in 2020 as an e-commerce site selling highly anticipated merchandise for fans.
However, due to its popularity, challenges arose, such as server crashes caused by explosive traffic, which made it impossible to check inventory and order numbers from the management dashboard, leading to a sense of limitation in the operational structure. In response, they executed a replacement with Shopify's Plus plan in 2022. By leveraging robust infrastructure and advanced analytics capabilities, they strengthened their e-commerce foundation. As a result, sales increased more than fivefold over the three years following the implementation. Furthermore, they succeeded in improving operational efficiency and customer experience.
This time, we delved into the challenges faced by "Chiikawa Market," the background behind the implementation of Shopify's Plus plan, and the results obtained from it.
【Results from implementing Shopify's Plus plan】
- GMV (Gross Merchandise Value): Over 5 times*
- Annual average growth rate: 140% (over the last three years)
- Shop Pay payment ratio: Approximately 40%
*During the three years following the implementation of Shopify's Plus plan.
This time, we delved into the challenges faced by "Chiikawa Market," the background behind the implementation of Shopify's Plus plan, and the results obtained from it.
From left: Mr. Kang, Sales Headquarters, WEB Business Division, Gray Parker Service Co., Ltd.; Mr. Kobayashi, Deputy General Manager, WEB Business Division; Ms. Matsushita, WEB Business Division; Mr. Izawa, President and CEO, Commerce Media Co., Ltd.
Fans unable to purchase, faced barriers due to popularity
"Chiikawa" is a manga and anime work that illustrator Nagano started serializing on X (formerly Twitter) in 2017. The story featuring the characters known as "Chiikawa," which means "small and cute," became popular almost instantly, with its charming characters showcasing a warm daily life juxtaposed with glimpses of a more serious world view. In April 2022, an anime adaptation began airing on "Mezamashi TV," gaining a wide fan base both domestically and internationally.
Gray Parker Service Co., Ltd. is responsible for producing goods based on characters such as "Chiikawa," "Nagano Characters," "Mofusand," and "Koupen-chan," as well as operating official online stores. The company emphasizes the importance of maintaining the character's world view while integrating online and offline product offerings, promoting the creation of beloved merchandise for many fans.
In 2020, the company launched the "Chiikawa Market" on a domestic e-commerce platform, rapidly growing its e-commerce sales alongside the increasing popularity of the characters. However, with this growth, the management of the online store faced serious challenges.
Especially during the release of new products, enormous traffic surged to the site, causing the servers to crash. As a result, many fans were unable to even access the site. Ms. Matsushita from Gray Parker Service reflects on the situation at that time, saying:
"When we tried to check the order status, we couldn't even access the management screen, so we had no idea how many of which products had sold. It was unclear whether there was any stock left or how many fans were trying to make a purchase. Every time a new product was released, the site would go down, and criticism erupted on social media. We received hundreds of complaints in a single day" (Ms. Matsushita).
Ms. Matsushita, WEB Business Department, Sales Headquarters, Gray Parker Service Inc.
At that time, the platform we were using had a difficult-to-read analytics screen, faced operational challenges, and made aggregation tasks difficult. As a result, we also had the challenge of not being able to properly utilize sales data.
To overcome this situation, Gray Parker Service decided in 2022 to migrate the EC platform to Shopify's Plus plan.
What were the requirements for the EC platform for "Chiikawa Market"?
The biggest challenge for "Chiikawa Market" was to build a robust EC platform capable of withstanding explosive increases in access. Mr. Kobayashi, who leads the company's online store business, explains the reasons for selecting Shopify's Plus plan as follows:
"When considering server strength, security assurance, and scalability, it can be said that there were no other options besides Shopify. Especially in business types like character EC, where sudden spikes in access occur, a stable infrastructure like Shopify's was essential." (Mr. Kobayashi)
Mr. Kobayashi, Deputy General Manager, Web Business Division, Sales Headquarters, Gray Parker Service Co., Ltd.
Shopify has a wealth of experience in e-commerce within the entertainment industry, and its infrastructure is capable of handling concentrated access, which was a significant factor in its adoption. Additionally, the environment that enables smooth integration with order management and WMS (Warehouse Management System) was also a key point.
During the replacement with Shopify, technical support was provided by Commerce Media Inc., a partner company of Shopify's Plus plan. Takahiro Izawa, the representative director of the company, reflected, "We have used many systems until now, but the stability of order processing is particularly challenging in this industry. I myself have faced difficulties in this area in the past, and when I encountered Shopify, I was convinced that 'Shopify can clear the stability of order processing.' Furthermore, since we had a track record equivalent to the shipping volume of the Chiikawa Market at that time, we proceeded with the implementation while specifically demonstrating its stability and reliability."
Before fully implementing Shopify, they first conducted a trial on an online store for another character. As a result, they confirmed that it was easier to operate than the previous platform and could handle the rapidly increasing number of customers. Based on that success, they confidently proceeded with the implementation of Shopify for the "Chiikawa Market."
"The essence of e-commerce is to provide a smooth purchasing experience and satisfy fans. When I thought about it, Shopify's Plus plan was the optimal choice. Shopify not only is easy to use but also provides an environment that most importantly 'enhances the customer experience,'" emphasized Kobayashi.
Chiikawa Market
Four Benefits Gained from Implementing Shopify for Stable Operations and Increased Sales
At 'Chiikawa Market,' the decision was made to implement the Shopify Plus plan to optimize the system infrastructure and achieve stable e-commerce operations. Currently, it has become a reliable platform that combines scalability and stability, supporting the growth of 'Chiikawa Market.' In particular, the results achieved from the implementation are as follows:
1. Zero Server Downtime, Establishment of Stable Infrastructure
Since its introduction, there has been no server downtime, achieving stable operations even during large-scale product launches. The resistance to concentrated access has greatly improved, with over 3,000 checkout processes recorded per minute.
"Previously, the site would crash just before a release, leaving fans unable to make purchases. Now, we can deliver products to many more customers without the worry of server downtime," said Ms. Matsushita.
While achieving stable server operation, the company is looking forward to further enhancements from Shopify. Compared to other platforms, Shopify boasts high durability and remarkable processing capacity as a standard. Moreover, the higher Plus plan can accommodate even larger traffic. Although Shopify has such high performance, the company is hopeful for further strengthening of the system-side limits (caps) to ensure preparedness for situations where payment processing becomes temporarily concentrated.
2. Utilization of Data Infrastructure Improves Demand Forecasting Accuracy
Real-time understanding of purchasing data has become possible, dramatically improving the accuracy of merchandising (MD). With Shopify's analytics tools, key metrics such as sales, conversion rates, and session numbers can be viewed on a single screen without additional settings or tasks, enabling quick and timely decision-making. Additionally, report customization can be flexibly performed, allowing for the free addition of items and perspectives of interest for deeper analysis.
Combining such data with accumulated insights from MD has improved inventory management and sales forecasting accuracy, resulting in more effective product launches. Furthermore, by operating a data-driven PDCA cycle, the speed of sales strategy improvement has also increased.
"By visualizing purchasing data, we have achieved proper inventory management. We have analyzed three years of sales data and can now accurately forecast how much of each product will sell. In particular, using sales trends from past similar products, we've become capable of making rapid, data-driven decisions, such as considering additional production in advance for products likely to sell out on the first day," said Mr. Kang.
Mr. Kang, Business Division, WEB Business Department, Gray Parker Service Co., Ltd.
3. Strengthening CRM through "LINE ID" integration
To strengthen the relationship with customers, the "LINE ID integration" has been introduced. Currently, over 50% of site users are linked with their LINE IDs, allowing for marketing initiatives through LINE.
"Previously, it was difficult to implement marketing based on user behavior history, but with the LINE integration, we can now execute more accurate CRM initiatives," said Mr. Kobayashi.
"Chiikawa Market" LINE Official Account
Additionally, as part of enhancing customer experience, an e-gift feature has been introduced. A system has been established that allows products to be sent along with original digital message cards, improving the experience not only for the purchasers but also for the recipients. "By enhancing the experiential value of gifts, we hope to introduce 'Chiikawa' to not only the purchasers but also to the recipients, leading to the acquisition of new customers," says Mr. Kobayashi.
E-gift feature with original message card
4. Achieving efficient operations and enhancing customer experience
At "Chiikawa Market," we are optimizing our site operations with support from commerce media while improving the customer experience.
First, we are utilizing Shopify's tags and metafields (a feature that allows for the addition of new information input fields on forms, from which data can be retrieved) to streamline product registration and management. Previously, the management of products involved a lot of manual work and was cumbersome, but structured data management has reduced both work time and errors, easing the operational burden. In particular, we are fine-tuning sales management and control of reserved orders to ensure appropriate management of saleable quantities.
Additionally, we have established an environment where users can quickly search for desired products by setting filters for each character.
"In regular ecommerce sites, products with different characters are often registered as variations within the same product page, which sometimes led to the recommendation of unrelated character products when users searched. Thanks to Shopify's flexibility, we can customize this and smoothly display only the characters that users are looking for," says Mr. Izawa.
Mr. Izawa, President & CEO of Commerce Media Inc.
Furthermore, by introducing Shopify's express checkout feature 'Shop Pay,' the purchasing process has been expedited. Currently, over 40% of transactions are conducted via Shop Pay, making it particularly beneficial for users who want to complete payments as quickly as possible for popular items that tend to sell out quickly.
As a result of these efforts, from 2022 to 2024, there has been a significant growth in GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume), increasing more than fivefold."
【Results of Implementing Shopify Plus Plan】
- GMV (Gross Merchandise Value): Over 5 times*
- Annual Average Growth Rate: 140% (over the last 3 years)
- Shop Pay Payment Ratio: Approximately 40%
*Results from the three years following the implementation of the Shopify Plus Plan.
On the other hand, there are still challenges remaining. Due to the popularity of the products, there have been instances of malicious resellers engaging in bulk purchasing, causing inconvenience to genuine customers seeking the products. In response to this situation, the company plans to continue implementing measures to ensure that customers can purchase with peace of mind.
Beyond Strengthening the E-Commerce Foundation: The Next Challenge for Chiikawa Market
Since adopting the Shopify Plus plan, “Chiikawa Market” has continued to achieve significant results. The cornerstone of their future growth strategy is to enhance their overseas expansion by improving logistics and payment systems. They have already implemented translation support in four languages (in addition to Japanese: English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese), which is also showing effectiveness in their overseas SEO efforts.
"We have built our site while valuing the worldview of Chiikawa and the customer experience, but I still feel there is much more we can do to satisfy our fans. Having acquired a robust e-commerce foundation with Shopify, the next step is international expansion. We want to build a system that allows us to smoothly deliver products to Chiikawa fans around the world," says Mr. Kobayashi.
Additionally, Mr. Kang mentions that the advancement of data visualization has made them eager to tackle the particularly challenging area of inventory management optimization within e-commerce operations. "We are exploring the possibilities of demand forecasting using AI. By leveraging generative AI tools and the Shopify app ecosystem, we hope to build more accurate sales plans," he expresses his expectations.
In addition to “Chiikawa Market,” the company has implemented Shopify in four other online stores. Mr. Kobayashi reiterates that he has experienced Shopify’s flexible scalability and high stability.
"The great thing about Shopify is that it fits regardless of the size of the store. It offers flexibility applicable to all types of businesses, from large-scale e-commerce to startups. Especially in areas like entertainment e-commerce, where access tends to surge, a stable infrastructure and strong security are essential. If we were to meet these requirements through other means, we would have to consider scratch development or expensive enterprise-level platforms. Being able to achieve such an environment without needing these alternatives is a unique strength of Shopify," Mr. Kobayashi adds.
Moreover, there are plans to launch another character’s online store using Shopify soon. They aim to strengthen their e-commerce strategy centered around Shopify, pursuing international expansion and further enhancing customer experience.