Trends in Japan - CScout Japan Blog

Net-based Supermarkets on the Rise

Written by: Rebecca Milner on July 2, 2009 at 7:06 pm | In DIGITAL LIFE | No Comments

According to a study conducted by Yano Research, the commodity home delivery market rose 4% between 2007 and 2008 reaching a worth of over 1.5 trillion yen (about USD15.6 billion). Moreover, the value of “net super” orders (groceries ordered over the internet) reached 23 billion yen in the same year—1.7 times the value of the previous year. The growing elderly population and increasing number households where both partners work are cited as reasons for presumed market growth.

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While convenience is obviously key, a number of customers concerned with food safety are using the internet to order food directly from organic and pesticide free foodstuff producers. Orders of this nature (following recent scares about tainted food from China) rose an impressive 12.6%. Yano anticipates that the general commodity delivery market will rise to 1.8 trillion yen (about USD18.8 billion) by 2013, of which 46.8 billion yen (about USD488 million) will be organic foodstuffs.

While most major national grocery store chains have “net super” components, other service providers are rising to the occasion. Once such example is the fashionable Kunitachi Farm. Originally a restaurant in suburban Tokyo that sources ingredients from nearby farms, the brand has expanded to include a net store on Rakuten, Japan’s enormous, all-encompassing net mall. Shoppers to the site can see pictures and profiles of the farmers who bring the food to the table, adding a new element to the food preparation process.

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While some may lament that solitary shopping online means that neighbors will no longer meet and interact at local markets, a few web services actually have a community element built in. A popular example is the Co-op supermarket chain online Pal System that allows neighbors to form community purchasing groups, saving money on bulk purchases and receiving free shipping. To date, over a million shoppers around the country are enrolled in the Pal System.

Trend Potential
Online grocery shopping rises to the occasion, meeting the needs of consumers valuing not only convenience but, increasingly, food safety. Meanwhile key sites show how a community element can be included, demonstrating that net shopping need not necessarily be anti-social.

Tags: FMCG, Retail
Category: DIGITAL LIFE
Other categories: MARKETING IDEAS, LIFESTYLE / FASHION, PRODUCT INNOVATIONS

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Yamanote Green Tea Bottle

Written by: Michael Keferl on June 15, 2009 at 3:04 pm | In PRODUCT INNOVATIONS | 2 Comments

Is the train-loving population really this influential with their pocketbooks? The last year has seen an explosion in train-themed goods in Japan, from alarm clocks to banks to watches and everything in-between. Trains hold a special place in modern Japanese life, many of whom utilize the system every day.

Mokku, a maker of toys and novelty FMCG, has recently begun selling a series of green tea modeled after the famed Yamanote Line in Tokyo. Doing a full loop around the downtown area, the Yamanote is a key connector and an iconic line.

At about $3.50, these bottles go for about three times what a normal green tea does, so it’s really all about the bottle rather than the contents. Still, it’s an interesting twist to take the Yamanote which is known for its stark green color and merging it with a green tea.

UPDATE: By the looks of this site there’s also a Keihin-Tohoku line version out there as well.

Tags: beverages, FMCG
Category: PRODUCT INNOVATIONS
Other categories: MARKETING IDEAS, DIGITAL LIFE, LIFESTYLE / FASHION

Shiso & Green Tea Cola for the Summer

Written by: Michael Keferl on June 9, 2009 at 7:20 pm | In PRODUCT INNOVATIONS | 1 Comment

I’ve been a fan of the vitamin C-infused Coca-Cola Plus for some time now, but that’s probably because it seems so tame compared to its beverage brethren these days.

Typically it isn’t Coca-Cola straying from their undeniably solid brand image, but Pepsi seems to have no problem playing around with colors, themes, and all kinds of flavor innovations on an regular basis. We all remember Crystal Pepsi many years ago, but recent years have brought us Cucumber, Blue Hawaii, Yogurt, and various other combinations of Coke’s ambitious rival.

weird japanese drinks

On the end of the image above are two latest cola variations in Japan: The upcoming Shiso-flavored Pepsi and the just-released Coca-Cola Plus with Green Tea flavor. The latter we had today, and it’s hard to tell the difference much since Coca-Cola isn’t going to go too crazy, but the shiso will surely be an interesting trial when it comes out in the next weeks.

Of course, it’s not just in the cola world where odd beverages pop up left and right, and there’s a method to the madness that ties into innovation, core-brand boosting, and creative destruction. It’s a wild and wonderful world when the drink choices change all the time, and disappointing when one of them gets you hooked and then vanishes without a trace!

Tags: beverages, FMCG, Marketing
Category: PRODUCT INNOVATIONS
Other categories: MARKETING IDEAS, DIGITAL LIFE, LIFESTYLE / FASHION

Bottle Innovation: I LOHAS from Coca-Cola Twists for the Environment

Written by: Michael Keferl on June 3, 2009 at 2:21 am | In LIFESTYLE / FASHION, MARKETING IDEAS, PRODUCT INNOVATIONS | 8 Comments

There’s a lot that can be done with PET bottle shapes, from sexier versions to the manipulated artistic pieces below. The bottles can communicate ingredients, emotion, or positive effects on the body purely by the bottle design and shape.

pet bottle art japan

New from Coca-Cola Japan, l LOHAS is jumping in on the Eco bandwagon with a bottled water that makes an environmental stand (at least marketing-wise) with its bottle design that twists up neatly into a 12 gram piece of plastic that is said to be 40% less than other PET bottles.

i lohas coca-cola

The marketing push makes the consumption process into three easy steps: Buy the water, Drink up, Twist up and dispose. Not too different from most other drinks, except for the twisting part which makes the waste noticeably smaller than your average PET bottle. While it may not make a tremendous difference in terms of waste (though it’s certainly space-saving), it does lend itself to a certain spirit of ecology that is making its way into Japanese society.