The Mysterious 'Gorilla Series' Hit: How Osaka's Doshisha Keeps Scoring
- Osaka-based Doshisha is thriving on its distinctive 'Gorilla Series', with strong results
- It keeps producing hits despite rising materials costs, fierce competition and labor shortages
- Success rests on sharp product planning and differentiation rather than price wars
- For retail and consumer players it is a real-world example of winning on planning amid headwinds
The eye-catching 'Gorilla Series' comes from Osaka-based Doshisha. Amid a retail sector squeezed by rising materials costs, fierce competition and labor shortages, the company keeps launching hits and posting strong results, and Toyo Keizai dissects its winning strategy. The key is that it avoids price wars. When everyone cites cost pressure and discounts, competing on price only drags a firm into a red ocean. Doshisha differentiates through product planning, giving products distinctive identity and talkability (like the highly recognizable Gorilla Series) so the goods themselves carry appeal and pricing power, the real skill behind sustaining profit in headwinds. For Taiwan's retail and consumer players, the lesson is concrete: when costs and competition turn hostile, rather than fight on price, return to the essential question of whether your product gives consumers a must-buy reason. Differentiated planning, clear branding and emotion-catching talkability often protect margins better than discounting. Watch Doshisha's new-product cadence and category expansion, and whether this planning-led model scales.