It’s a June weekend and shoppers are abound on Oxford Street, Europe’s busiest retail thoroughfare. Pedicabs are about, tourists are rushing around with bags of clothes and souvenirs and buskers are out blaring music.
One of the latest brands to arrive in the West End is Japanese-themed toy store Keikoo. With an eye-catching shop fit and shelves crammed with merchandise, it looks at first glance like an exciting new addition to Britain’s premier high street.
However just weeks later the shopfront is shuttered down, the windows boarded up and the space left empty.
It’s by now a familiar story on Oxford Street, where ‘ghost’ stores routinely open up and vanish within a year, costing Westminster City Council millions of pounds in unpaid business rates.
But Keikoo’s mysterious case raises several questions. Until now, the majority of short-term stores in the West End have fallen into one of two main categories: candy stores and shops selling souvenirs and vapes.
Although now a fixture of Oxford Street for nearly a decade, the trend blossomed with the advent of American-style sweet shops during the pandemic, filling up premises vacated by businesses forced to scale back or close over Covid due to tough trading conditions.
Keikoo’s story begins in 2024, when the fledgling business secured a huge unit in Mount Royal at 532-534 Oxford Street, the same building that houses TK Maxx’s flagship store, and more recently welcomed restaurant brand Caffé Concerto on a large corner plot.
The building’s owners, GPE or Great Portland Estates, manage a portfolio of over 30 properties across the capital.
Number 532-534 was previously occupied by a store entitled ‘Live and Exclusive’ which also sold themed toys and lasted less than a year in the unit.
In July 2024, GPE signed a 10-year lease with Keikoo, promising the store would ‘bring an educational and experimental offer to all young children, offering live product demonstrations and an exciting shop-fit out’.
Historical pictures from Google Street view show the store did not open its doors until late 2025. It was trading as recently as last month, but suddenly closed in recent weeks, There was no notice from the landlord of any reentry due to a breach of the lease.
Keikoo has little to no online presence, including when it was trading, with no website or even contact details listed, but single TikTok clip set to Japanese music being one of the brand’s few footprints.
And while it was marketed as a Japanese brand, head deeper into the shop (when it was open) and the authenticity quickly fades, as shelves crammed with rows of Paddington bears, Harry Potter merchandise and fizzy drinks well outnumber those with genuine Japanese goods.
Despite having signed the lease in 2024, Keikoo filed accounts as a dormant company for the year ending April 2025 and is currently overdue a confirmation statement by two months.
As for Number 532-534, it was removed from the business rating list in 2023, when its rateable value surpassed £1million.
A source from GPE told WT that it was now looking to re-let the space after Keikoo breached a covenant in its lease requiring it not to diverge its stock away from Japanese items.
However the landlord declined to confirm which party terminated the letting, with the source indicating that Keikoo had reported struggling financially in the last few months despite keeping up with its rent payments.
As one of Europe’s most expensive shopping streets, a retail unit on Oxford Street can attract a rent of up to £1,000 per square foot, equating to almost £2million annually for a 2,000 sq ft space.
But despite the brand having little track record, no other stores and little online promotion, the building’s owners insist it passed a rigorous vetting procedure.
As officials draw up plans to regenerate Oxford Street, including by making much of the road traffic free, attention continues to be drawn at the high level of poor quality or non bona fida businesses operating in the West End.
There are some green shoots appearing – one major souvenir store near Marble Arch was recently replaced by the F1 hub.
Since 2021, candy stores have halfed in number, from 11 to 6 across the whole of Oxford Street. Souvenir and vape shops remain prevalent with 14 of the 17 recorded five years ago still operating.
A total of 17 units remain unoccupied (excluding those under construction or being refitted).
WT has contacted Westminster City Council for comment.
[…] July, WT revealed a store which secured a large unit on Oxford Street by pitching itself as a Japanese toy store to the landlord, only to break its lease and sell other souvenirs and sweets. The store closed this […]