Miniso is moving its U.S. expansion out of shopping malls and into power centers anchored by Walmart, Target, and Ulta, according to Modern Retail. The shift comes with a larger store format and a merchandising strategy centered on owned intellectual property rather than licensed Disney or Sanrio characters. The company plans to open more than 500 stores across North America over the next several years, targeting standalone locations of 2,000 to 3,000 square feet instead of the 800 to 1,500 square foot mall footprints it used previously.
The merchandising play is the more telling move. Miniso is placing proprietary characters — its Penpen penguin line and other house-developed IP — at the front of stores and dedicating more floor space to them. Licensed IP, which previously drove traffic and basket size, now occupies secondary positions. The company is betting that owned IP generates higher margin, tighter supply-chain control, and a merchandising calendar it can steer without licensor approval cycles. According to Modern Retail, Miniso's owned IP already accounts for a meaningful share of basket composition in test markets, and the company believes the economics improve as unit velocity scales.
The mechanism works because power-center traffic patterns differ from mall traffic. Mall stores depend on impulse visits during shopping trips anchored by apparel or department stores. Power-center locations pull a different customer: errand runners who stop at Target, Ulta, or a grocery anchor and are primed for a quick in-and-out discretionary purchase. Larger footprints allow Miniso to organize product by use case and character family rather than compressing everything into a grab-bin format. A customer who sees a Penpen plush at the entrance can find matching stationery, home goods, and seasonal items in the same sightline. The layout creates a reason to browse rather than grab, and owned IP provides the thread that holds the assortment together without paying a licensing royalty on every unit sold.
The broader retail real estate play is about lease economics. Power-center rents per square foot run lower than enclosed-mall rents in most markets, and Miniso's larger format spreads occupancy cost across higher unit sales. The company also avoids the co-tenancy clauses and percentage-rent structures common in malls, which tie payments to overall mall traffic rather than store performance. By co-locating with Walmart and Target, Miniso borrows traffic from anchors that already draw weekly visits, reducing its own customer-acquisition cost to near zero.
A small physical-product brand can run the same play without opening 500 stores. Start by identifying the owned IP or hero product that carries the highest margin and the most SKU depth in your catalog. That becomes your merchandising anchor. If you sell through wholesale or pop-up retail, negotiate for front-of-store placement or endcap positioning and build the display around that hero line, not your full range. Use the hero product to pull traffic, then cross-merchandise complementary SKUs within arm's reach. If you operate DTC, apply the same logic to your homepage and email flows: lead with the owned product that has the most variant options, then surface related items in the same visual block. Track which entry product generates the highest average order value when it appears first in the buyer journey, then lock that as your default anchor.
For site selection, if you're testing physical retail or pop-ups, prioritize locations adjacent to high-frequency anchors — grocery stores, Ulta, pet-supply chains — over lifestyle or apparel-driven centers. The customer who visits weekly for milk or dog food has a predictable traffic pattern and a higher likelihood of a fill-in purchase. Negotiate short-term or seasonal leases in power centers during Q4 or back-to-school, when anchor traffic peaks and landlords are more willing to offer flexible terms to fill vacant space.
The North American rollout is a bet that owned IP scales better than licensed IP when you control the entire merchandising calendar and margin structure. For a product brand, the lesson is the same whether you're opening a store or optimizing a product page: the asset you own outperforms the asset you rent, and the merchandising anchor should be the one that gives you the most leverage to build a deeper basket.
The takeaway
Anchor merchandising on owned IP in high-frequency retail corridors to control margin and basket depth without licensing drag.
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