KIFUNE Department & Food Store Ltd

The first time Lily Lai set foot in Japan, she knew she had to somehow bring the unique merchandise to Edmontonians. After seeing many cute, handmade items while abroad, Lily decided to open Ki-Fu-Ne Japan in February 2015 to bring many of the Japanese products to Edmonton.

But getting the merchandise halfway around the world wasn’t an easy task. “It was a challenge to open this store. A lot of these companies only sell their products inside Japan.  Japan culture is very closed off. They’re not very easy to open up,” says Lily.

But after travelling to meet with many of the Japanese company officials in person to convince them of the success they could have in Edmonton, Lily was able to bring products from Japan that have never been sold outside of the Asian country. As a result, Ki-Fu-Ne Japan now boasts a healthy repertoire of stationery, handmade towels and pottery from the island nation, just to name a few of the store’s available products.