Editorials
(1)
by
df
By. Jin Hee Lee
Title: Why is every hypermarket crowded with shoppers in Japan on 31st of March?
Japan, on the 1st April, raised its consumption tax significantly from 5% to 8%. The first of a ‘two-step increase’ that will push the tax to 10% by the year 2015. For this reason, big-box retailers in Japan such as AEON, Itoyokadoboth hada major sales event to provide against price increase as a result of the raise in consumption tax. Each retailer was jammed with people buying daily necessities, and resulted in some of the retailers running out of stock on the weekend before the tax increase. Such panic buying is similar to a phenomenon that happened when people were stocking up their daily necessity after the great east japan earthquake occurred. From the point of consumers’, the raise of consumption tax has brought about extreme anxiety and shock to their daily life.
A sudden price increase is enough to give shock to the Japanese people because they haven’t gone through a price increase for 20years.This period is also known as the‘lost two decades’. Because of this, it is no wonder that somany Japanese people queued up to buy stuff before the price increase.
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