The Anime-Inspired Start-up: Weeb Express Takes on Hyper Japan London

Weeb Express is an anime merchandise business, founded in July 2021 by Materials Science Graduate, Heidi Leung. On 21 - 23 July, Weeb Express attended Hyper Japan London - the largest Japanese culture festival in the UK, centred around Japanese cuisine and pop culture such as gaming, anime, manga, music and more!

With the help from the UoB Elevate Start-Up programme, Weeb Express was able to employ two talented University of Birmingham student interns, Ash and Fiona, to support the team with Sales and Marketing during the event.
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the staff team and the invaluable support from the student interns, Weeb Express achieved a remarkable result at Hyper Japan.

Over the course of three days, Weeb Express secured more than 300 sales, resulting in an impressive total revenue of £3600. Their social media reached more than 1000 target audiences and gained 20% more followers. 

Heidi: Hyper Japan was our very first convention in London and our third convention ever since we started two years ago. I am so glad that everything turned out alright in the end. Despite the train/tube strikes affecting sales, we still managed to make a small profit!  London has proven to be a suitable place for Weeb Express, and we're eager to attend more London conventions in the future. 

Weeb Express is more than just making money. It's about bringing happiness to anime fans in this country, including myself! I love anime, and it's fulfilling to work for what I enjoy.

Running a convention stall like this enables me to meet wonderful, like-minded anime fans in this country.

I'm also grateful that the Elevate Programme gave me the opportunity to employ Ash and Fiona as student interns. They have been a great help! It was my first time undertaking the hiring responsibilities, including crafting job descriptions, conducting interviews, and maaging the interns. I've learned a lot from it, and I'll use those lessons to make things even better next time!

Ash: During my internship with Weeb Express, I found it interesting to witness and be a part of two distinct aspects to retail: an online aspect, in which I spent time discussing and strategising potential social media campaigns in order to improve customer retention, as well as a physical aspect, in which we sold merchandise at Hyper Japan, a massive festival in celebration of Japanese culture.

I learned the importance of building a loyal customer base- the more people following us means the more people that will have a look at buying from our store.

To this end, together with the rest of the Weeb Express team, we planned and executed said strategies such as collaborating with university societies and anime groups that would be interested in buying from us. They get a discount, we get advertising, a win-win situation.

Above: an example of a promotional voucher we created as part of a collaboration with anime societies

Speaking of which, next came Hyper Japan itself. Weeb Express primarily focuses on selling anime merchandise, and at Hyper Japan we had plenty of customers interested in our stand. The one big difference between regular retail opportunities, and working at a stall at a festival, was the level of presentation that needed to go into the stall. I found that our Ichiban Kuji was a big draw to people at the festival, as it was unique and made customers curious to have a try at our lucky draw.

Fiona: As part of my internship with Weeb Express, I was responsible for the company’s social media advertisement. At first, I wasn’t sure what kind of expectations I should have nor how to go about designing the marketing posts, but was provided with apt assistance such as previous examples and suggestions of design tools such as Canva.

I quickly grew accustomed to utilising graphic design techniques to ensure Weeb Express’ posts looked as professional as possible, and ensured that all captions were formatted uniformly and correctly. I learnt how to track product stock, practised my translation skills and learnt more about how the business generated profit, all while under a relaxed work environment.

The part I enjoyed the most was definitely being able to work at the Hyper Japan convention in-person; it was a remarkable opportunity which I will remember for years to come. It is the largest exhibition celebrating Japanese culture to be held in the UK, hosting thousands of visitors in London!

I enjoyed interacting with various customers and introducing to them our Ichiban Kuji lucky draw as a sales assistant. Selling merchandise was satisfying and rewarding. I was even given the opportunity to browse the convention leisurely during my breaks, which was definitely a big bonus.

All in all, I found working for Weeb Express and learning about its business practices a pleasant and recommendable experience, especially as I have of common interests with Heidi, the owner. 

Recommended blog: The anime inspured start-up (Weeb Express)

Written by Heidi Leung, Ash and Fiona Zhang.
Added by Bob Lee