Endo Muneshige, President and COO, iStyle Inc.　

Atcosme was born from the desire to listen to the voices of consumers.

President and COO, iStyle Inc.　Endo Muneshige　(Endo Hajime)

■ Profile

After working at Funai Sogo Research Institute Co., Ltd. and Tashiro Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., he joined the istyle group in 2007, when cosme next Co., Ltd. was founded and the @cosme store opened, and he became a director. He then served as the representative director and president of istyle Retail Co., Ltd. (current position), which operates stores and e-commerce, and oversees the istyle group's domestic and international retail business. He will be appointed representative director, president, and COO of istyle Co., Ltd. in September 2022.

Endo Muneta is the CEO and COO of iStyle, the company that operates the comprehensive cosmetics and beauty website @cosme. We spoke to Endo about his career so far and his thoughts on iStyle.

■ When I was a student, I initially decided to become a salesperson

I think I was a normal student. I wasn't doing anything special, I was a member of a soccer club and worked part-time as a private tutor. I graduated in 1996, and back then job hunting didn't start as early as it does now. Internships weren't as common as they are now, and were only offered by a few foreign companies. Internships back then paid around 10,000 yen a day, so I took exams and interviews as if it were a part-time job. However, I don't think I was particularly enthusiastic about job hunting overall.
Even before joining the company, I had wanted to work in sales at my first job. I wanted to "sell products and services." Whatever I do in the future, as a business, I will need to provide some kind of service or product to someone. So I thought it would be good to have experience in "selling."
Basically, I thought it would be fine to work anywhere as long as I could do sales, so I started working in car sales as a new graduate. At the time, car sales was at rock bottom, so I had no customer base and had to find new customers myself. However, when you're told to "sell cars cold-call during the day," it's hard to sell. So I decided to limit my work during the day on weekdays and focus on selling to people who are interested in cars on the weekends.
After gaining experience in car sales as a new graduate, I moved on to become a management consultant, where I worked for around five years. At this point, I decided that I wanted to work in the business, so I switched jobs to an IT company run by an acquaintance, where I was in charge of business planning for around two years. After that, I moved to a cosmetics specialty store run by a senior from my university seminar, where I worked as a cosmetics retailer. While at that company, I realized that it was quite difficult for a cosmetics retailer to create a brand. Rather than going it alone, I thought it would be better to work with someone, and so I got involved with iStyle, and @cosme store was born.

■ iStyle is serious about creating a consumer-centric market

Istyle, the company I currently represent, has a vision of "creating a consumer-centric market." I love this phrase.
There are many companies that say, "Let's take care of consumers" or "Put the customer first," but there aren't many that are truly centered around consumers and run by their voices. On the other hand, iStyle is a company that sincerely listens to consumer feedback through word of mouth, and I think its greatest appeal is that it is attuned to consumers' feelings.
Of course, stealth marketing can sometimes sneak into reviews. To prevent such fraudulent reviews from being included, we use our systems and human eyes to check reviews 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

■ Word of mouth is like a tester in a store

You can't know if cosmetics suit your skin unless you actually try them out, and many people want to see the color. For this reason, it was a common belief in the industry that cosmetics couldn't be sold online. As a result, it was surprisingly late for e-commerce for cosmetics to take off in earnest.
Even now, while the cosmetics market is worth over 2 trillion yen, the e-commerce rate has only recently reached around 7-8%. The impact of COVID-5000 has led to an increase in online purchases, which has led to a sudden shift to e-commerce, but the brick-and-mortar market is overwhelmingly larger in Japan.
I think online reviews are like testers in stores. If you can replace the impressions of other people who have used the product with your own impressions, you can imagine to some extent what it will be like to use it. If the reviews are credible, I think they will act as a stronger incentive to purchase.    

　

■Message to university students

The founder of Funai Sogo Research Institute, where I used to work, listed the three main conditions for a person to grow: honesty, positive thinking, and a love of learning, and I personally agree. Of these, I think the element of "honesty" is especially important. I want students to experience listening to and absorbing what various people have to say, rather than being rigid in their thinking.
Everyone tends to think, "I want to succeed quickly," but you never know when that will happen, for better or worse. Because you're young, many people will teach you many things, so it's important to absorb them with an open mind. I'm sure success will follow after that.
I myself didn't have any big visions to begin with. I just worked hard to achieve results in the things that I had to do and the things that I should do, and to make the people who had high expectations of me happy.
However, in order to achieve results, I listened to and absorbed a lot of different advice from many people, and I'm glad I was able to undergo that training while I was still young.
There will be times when you will experience setbacks. However, the important thing is not to avoid failure, but to be motivated to try harder so that you don't fail again. Don't forget that feeling, and be sure to challenge yourself in all sorts of different ways.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on November 10, 2022 by Sakura Saeki, second-year student at Hosei University