The ‘100-yen’ answers to all of life’s needs

February 03, 2018 07:08 pm | Updated 07:10 pm IST

Shopping in Tokyo conjures up images of swanky boutiques and equally swanky price tags. But the Japanese capital’s real retail engine thrums in the tiny, crammed and endlessly inventive environs of the ubiquitous ‘100-yen’ stores. These unassuming giants of consumerism allow the residents of one of the world’s most expensive cities to shop away with scarcely a dent made to their bank accounts.

The ‘100-yen’ stores do exactly what they advertise: sell almost everything on their heaving shelves for ¥100 (plus ¥8 for tax) — about a dollar. But they are more than just a place for cheaply made tat. They are a place for education as well, where the shopper learns about everything she never knew she needed but simply can’t do without after encountering it.

There is scant logic to the arrangement of goods with only the price tag in common: plant fertilisers rub up against laundry bags, and pencil sharpeners are nested with surgical masks. But where else can you find a banana-holder, an owl-shaped egg-maker, a cherry blossom-shaped carrot slicer, bicycle rain-covers, an origami paper, Halloween masks and everything in between? Small wonder that the combined sales of the four largest ‘100-yen store’ operators was estimated at ¥660 billion ($5.85 billion) in the 2016 fiscal, up by 20% over a five-year period. The clear leader of the pack is Daiso, a Hiroshima-headquartered outfit that opened its first store in 1991 and now runs roughly 3,700 shops across the country. Revenue for Daiso, which stocks about 70,000 household items, was ¥420 billion ($3.79 billion) in the last fiscal.

Part of the success of these stores has to do with Japan’s sluggish economy and stagnant wages that have resulted in a consumer culture focussed on bargains. But their history can be traced back to the pre-bubble era street stalls of the 1970s — makeshift outfits that sold cheap stationary and household bric-a-brac. The 1980s saw the rise of supermarkets, which on occasion would stage popular ‘100-yen sales’, but the stores took on their contemporary avatar only about two decades ago.

Mass production

The ‘100-yen question’ is: How does the entire operation work in economic terms? How can selling goods for so little turn a profit? The answer lies in mass production of products in low-wage countries, bulk ordering by Japanese retailers and elimination of the middlemen. The disparate items available at these stores are not all of equal value. Some are worth only ¥10 at cost, while others are worth well over ¥100. The cheaper items in effect subsidise the pricier ones, balancing out to a figure that has both shop-owners and consumers smiling. What really makes Japan’s ‘100-yen stores’ stand out compared to ‘one-dollar stores’ and their equivalents around the world is not only that the quality of their offerings is often higher than average, but also the ingeniousness of those who design them.

This correspondent’s favourite is the portable trash bag holder, a neat solution to one of Japanese life’s biggest headaches: what to do with one’s rubbish. There are virtually no public trash cans in Tokyo to get rid of increasingly insipid wads of chewing gum or wet wipes oozing baby spit. You usually have to hold on to these in your hands or stuff them in your bag. But a roll of a dozen trash bags in a compact holder that fits into any tote allows one to peel off a bag to toss garbage into and carry it back home mess-free. An elegant ‘100-yen fix’.

Pallavi Aiyar is an author and journalist based in Tokyo

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