Due to the continued economic downturn, prices in the Japanese consumer market have not changed much over the years. The prices of daily necessities such as clothing, shoes and hats are also declining year by year. However, after the implementation of this new consumption tax, commodity prices have increased significantly, and the pricing methods have also changed.
In some shopping places that I often visited in previous years, I saw that after the implementation of the new consumption tax, the price of goods increased significantly. A pair of stockings that used to cost 550 yen now costs 660 yen; a pair of finger clip scissors with a magnifying glass that used to cost more than 800 yen now costs 1,000 yen; Chinese tourists like to buy thermos cups. Prices have also increased slightly.
Due to the increase in consumption tax, the final sales price of goods will also increase. However, merchants are also adjusting their product mix, and some products with too low prices have disappeared from the containers. In the Uniqlo store in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, jeans that cost less than 1,000 yen a pair in previous years and short-sleeved T-shirts that cost more than 500 yen have basically disappeared. Perhaps it is because the crazy sales season after the implementation of the new consumption tax has just passed. Recently, I have seen in some shopping malls and specialty stores in Osaka that there are much fewer products on sale than at this time in previous years.
Some Chinese exhibitors participating in Japan’s “China Textile and Clothing Fair (CFF)” held in Osaka told reporters that clothing prices in Japan’s terminal consumer market have increased significantly. An exhibitor from Shandong told reporters that the shirt he bought at Uniforms last year for more than 1,700 yen, this year the shirt of the same style and fabric has increased to more than 2,100 yen.
The pricing of goods in Japanese shopping malls has new features this year. In previous years, the price of goods was mostly tax-included. This year, some goods were marked with a “tax-exclusive” price in a larger font size, and then the specific amount of consumption tax was marked in a smaller font size. The “tax-exclusive” price is the price without consumption tax. For goods priced in this way, consumers will not know the actual price at the time of purchase. Some stores also use larger characters to mark the price, but use very small characters to mark “tax not included” next to it. The “excluding tax” is often ignored by consumers, who only find out that the amount charged by the store is higher than the listed price when they check out.
According to relevant media reports, in Japan, the government has required the retail market to price in the form of a “total” including consumption tax since 2004. On the one hand, consumers can understand the amount they need to pay at a glance, and on the other hand, the state uses this to help consumers adapt to the collection of consumption tax. However, with the consumption tax increase as the key point, the rigid requirement of “total markup” was canceled in October last year, and more and more merchants began to mark the physical price of goods “excluding tax”.
Osaka Market The prices of goods in Japanese retail markets are very confusing. Some products are marked with a “tax-exclusive” price, and some are marked with a “tax-in” price; some are marked with a product price plus tax, and some are marked with a total price of the product, with the amount of consumption tax in brackets at the end.
