2018, the year of international expansion
It’s 2019, so we decided to write a post on how much Croooober has changed in one year. 2018 was an exciting year for Croooober. 2018 is a very special milestone for us here in Croooober because
It was the year we took the international market seriously.
We have been pushing international for many years but last year, I did so aggressively. That push became easier when many Youtubers living in Japan and outside Japan featuring took the time to come to our store and did a video on us. For that, we are truly grateful.
Not only that, to make our presence more well known, we have also created a Youtube Channel and shared tons of video/articles at our Facebook page to let our fans know more about us! Here are some of Croooober’s highlights of 2018.
January – A fresh start in 2018 and we are already being featured!
Thank you so much Average Bros Media for featuring us! It is unfortunate that you didn’t manage to come to our new store which was later opened the next month. But his video will be highly valuable to us as it is one of the last videos featuring this UP Garage store. This store will later be closed and converted into our new office – Croooober Holding.
February – The Opening of the Machida Flagship Store
23rd February 2018 – That’s the opening date of our Machida UP Garage Flagship store. The biggest UP Garage store in Japan to date. This store will later be the spotlight of many Youtubers and JDM-ers to come. Tokyo Drivers Club didn’t miss the chance to take a great video of the opening and became the first Youtuber to feature our store! Little that he knows, one of the random person he shot in his video is also the CEO of UP Garage! – We are not telling which of the person shown is our CEO
March – Let’s heat things up!
We were featured by StevePOV. Well, technically we asked him very politely if he wants to feature us on his video! He was very happy with the idea and came to our store took some videos and did some introduction about us. As we mentioned, we started getting serious on international expansion so to start thing off, we gave all our fans, a 10% off coupon!
Two days after, Sammit, an Australian Youtuber who is married to a beautiful and lovely Japanese, and who is also an all-time UP Garage fan came to our store and took some videos. Being a big fan, he will definitely not miss out the news that we just opened the largest UP Garage store at Minami Machida!
At the same time, we have also started creating our very own video which most of you guys would have noticed as the video went viral in most parts of the world. Definitely, a good start for 2018!
While we were busy with the new store, Beavis Motorsport, an Australian Youtuber sneaked under our nose and featured the other UP Garage store in Tokyo.
May – We started our very own Youtube Channel!
In order to create the video content on our website, we have worked with UP Garage at Machida and also Kazuya Taguchi a USA formula D driver who also happens to work at UP Garage. This will later become one of the most viewed videos we have on Facebook. It is kinda sad that the same result was not seen on our Youtube Channel. (Visit our Youtube channel here! Give us some support!)
Why people! Why are you guys nothing watching our videos on youtube!
If you want get know more about Taguchi-san, feel free to follow him on his Instagram at @kazuya_taguchi
June – Our international customers were interviewed by a Japanese TV!
So channel 5 of Japanese TV was asking around “What do foreigner shoppers come to Japan to buy”. And guess who ranked at number 11? UP GARAGE! Guys, thank you for coming all the way to Japan just to shop at our store. We really appreciate that!
Please don’t try to click on the video, it will not load since it’s an image. To view the video, please click here instead.
October – Croooober’s Tokyo Auto Salon Campaign
Since a few years ago, we started putting together a photo collage of car photos from our customers and feature them at our booth at Tokyo Auto Salon. Last year, our aim was to feature 500 of those photos but we actually came out short.
But this year is different, this year we actually managed to achieve our goal to collect 1,000 photos of cars to be featured on Tokyo Auto Salon in 2019. And surprise, surprise, 30% to 40% of the submission was done by our international customers! That means, this year we get to achieve our goals all thanks to you guys! Thank you!
While we are busy with our Tokyo Auto Salon campaign, a mysterious Youtuber Phil Z who just moved to Japan lately dropped by our store at Machida. Hello there Phil 😉
November – We got covered by Josef from Czech
Although we can’t understand Czech, but I am quite sure he loves us a lot! Why? since he used such a piece of beautiful background music while featuring us! If you are reading this, we just want to say thank you for featuring us! Without your video, who would have known there are so many JDM fans over there at Czech! We totally love Czech too, beautiful country with beautiful bridges, lovely skeleton church, and mythical golem!
– Love from Japan!
A few weeks later, a three loving brother Youtube team drop by our store at Saitama when he came to Japan. Welcome to Japan Motta Brothers Garage!
December – New feature on our website
Although we have this planned for release since long time ago, but we finally got it done. Visitors to our website can finally find wheels based on spec easily via this new function. Although it can be done all the time, but the feature has always been “hidden” from plain sight.
So to make sure everyone knows about it, this time, we make them big and obvious. Such as putting it on our homepage.
And that is it guys, Croooober in 2018! And I bet you guys know we have a really fulfilling year and we can’t wait for what 2019 will turn Croooober into.
And this time, we are going to start off a great year at Tokyo Auto Salon 2019! So if you are joining Tokyo Auto Salon 2019, don’t forget to drop by the Croooober booth and say hi to us! And if you have submitted your cars’ photo to us and received an email from us saying your photo will be featured, I am sure you can’t wait to see your car on the Tokyo Salon 2019 as well.
So see you guys by then and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
