How does a product so ordinary that we barely notice it become a global business and keep innovating more than a century later? The humble zipper offers a surprisingly good lesson in how products move from an entrepreneur’s imperfect idea to widespread adoption and then continue evolving long after becoming commonplace.
The zipper’s story begins with a familiar entrepreneurial problem. The first idea wasn’t necessarily a good product. Whitcomb Judson promoted an early fastening device in the 1890s, but it jammed and was impractical. Engineer Gideon Sundback later redesigned the concept into something resembling today’s zipper. Even then, innovation alone wasn’t enough. Manufacturing technology had to catch up, and companies had to find applications consumers valued.
Enter YKK. Founded in Japan in 1934, YKK eventually built an integrated manufacturing system and became an enormous supplier of an product most consumers rarely purchase directly. In 2024 alone, YKK sold more than 10 billion zippers. But successful products don’t stop innovating when they reach maturity. In 2026, YKK collaborated with Epson and fashion designer Yuima Nakazato to develop a concept EXCELLA zipper using nonwoven material partially derived from used clothing. The zipper appeared in Nakazato’s INFERNO collection at Paris Haute Couture Week. YKK has also expanded its NATULON line incorporating recycled materials, which represented 56% of its global zipper sales by the end of 2025.
That makes the zipper more than an invention story. It demonstrates the ongoing cycle from entrepreneurship to reinvention. So look at the zipper on your backpack again. The next time you zip a jacket or close a backpack, consider what the zipper reveals about marketing: even the most established products can create new value through innovation, collaboration, and reinvention.
Discussion Questions and Activities
- Watch the Wall Street Journal’s video, Why These Three Letters are on Billions of Zippers on YouTube. In teams, discuss the following topics, or others, from the video and present YKK’s strategy to the class.
- Why did Judson’s entrepreneurial vision fail initially even though the underlying customer problem was legitimate? What factors helped move the zipper from an invention to a commercially successful and widely adopted product?
- YKK primarily sells to other businesses rather than directly to consumers. How does being a product component brand affect its marketing strategy?
- Is sustainability likely to influence customer adoption of an improved zipper, or are functionality, quality, and price more important?
- The zipper is a mature product category. What does the YKK-Epson collaboration suggest about opportunities for innovation during the maturity stage of the product life cycle?
- The YKK Hunt. Component Branding in Your Closet or Classroom. Give students five minutes to find YKK on something they are wearing or carrying. Then have them identify other component brands inside products they own such as Intel, Gore-Tex, or Dolby. Discuss why a component manufacturer would want consumers to recognize its brand?
- Sustainability Detective. Students visit YKK’s sustainability page and investigate one sustainability-related innovation. They then prepare a one-slide analysis answering the following questions. What changed in the product? What customer or societal problem does it address? Does it create meaningful customer value or primarily improve the company’s sustainability credentials?
- Reinvent the Zipper. In teams, students become YKK product managers. Their challenge is to develop the next generation of the zipper for a specific target market – athletes, travelers, outdoor enthusiasts, people with disabilities, luxury-fashion consumers, or another segment. Teams must identify a customer problem, propose the innovation, define its value proposition, and explain how they would encourage adoption.
Sources: Wang, Tianyang (29 July 2026), YKK Sells 10 Billion Zippers a Year. How Did It Get So Big? Wall Street Journal; Reneau, Annie (2 April 2026), The surprisingly genius design of common zippers and why so many have ‘YKK’ on the pull tab, Upworthy; Seiko Epson Corporation. (2026, July 13). Epson collaborates with YKK to use regenerated fiber material in new zipper applications, http://www.corporate.epson/news.
