More evidence that the pandemic has pushed more consumption online was confirmed in November by Japan’s Cabinet Office. As of June 2021, 51.3 percent of the population had shopped online, breaking half the population for the first time. The government expects the figure to exceed 80 percent by 2024, bringing Japan in line with the United States.
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The Cabinet Office surveyed people aged 20 or over and compared to the previous survey in 2017, there was an 8.3 point increase in online shoppers. The report also revealed a reluctance to return to traditional face to face shopping for some categories such as food. E-commerce sales of physical goods grew 21.7 percent to JPY 12.23 trillion (US$ 107 billion) in 2020, with the highest spending categories being electronics, fashion and food.
The government also blamed over reliance on cash as a key inhibitor, but with more people looking to use contact-less payment systems, this barrier has also been lowered in the past year.
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Despite these figures, some analysts still worry that Japan’s elderly will be slow to adopt e-commerce and that some retailers are still reluctant to push the channel in the hope of maintaining store footfall.
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