Latest news with #Rakuten
17 hours ago
- Business
Govt-Stockpiled Rice Sells Out Immediately on Rakuten
News from Japan May 29, 2025 20:33 (JST) Tokyo, May 29 (Jiji Press)--Japanese retailers including e-commerce giant Rakuten Group Inc. on Thursday began selling government-stockpiled rice that they procured under no-bid contracts. Rakuten began selling the rice at 2,138 yen per 5-kilogram bag, tax included, on its directly run online shops from around noon, and it immediately sold out. "We will sell (rice) again as soon as we have additional stock," a company official said. The Iris Ohyama Inc. group began accepting pre-orders form around 1 p.m. Monday, but stopped accepting orders in about 45 minutes due to a flood of orders. It plans to sell the rice for 2,160 yen per 5-kilogram bag at stores from Monday. Meanwhile, some companies failed to win contracts for stockpiled rice with the government. Major convenience store chains FamilyMart Co., Seven-Eleven Japan Co. and Lawson Inc. were not included in the agriculture ministry's list of firms that have finalized their applications for the rice. FamilyMart plans to apply again for stockpiled rice, next time for rice harvested in 2021 instead of 2022. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
Japan Times
19 hours ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Stockpiled rice shipped within three days, set to hit shelves next week
The first batch of the government's stockpiled rice sold through no-bid contracts was delivered to buyers Thursday, just three days after the agriculture ministry started accepting purchases from major retailers through the program, with the grain expected to hit shelves as soon as Monday. The rapid shipment is in sharp contrast with previous arrangements using auctions, under which it took months to sell and ship 310,000 metric tons of rice in phases. It is not yet clear whether the latest move will help lower the overall price of rice or will be limited to a one-off windfall for shoppers until the stockpiled rice sells out. Twelve metric tons of rice arrived Thursday morning at a rice-polishing factory in Miyagi Prefecture operated by a subsidiary of Iris Ohyama, which purchased 10,000 tons in total. The company will polish the rice, repackage it and start selling it at some of its stores in Miyagi, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures from Monday at ¥2,160 for a 5-kilogram bag of rice. Iris Ohyama also started selling the rice on its website later Thursday, but shoppers had a hard time accessing the website due to a large volume of traffic. Online retailer Rakuten also started selling rice on its website Thursday at ¥2,138 per 5-kg bag, with stock selling out in a few hours. Delivery of that rice would be about two weeks from now, the company said. Rakuten had prepared a special website for the sale, limiting purchases to one bag per day and up to two bags in total per purchaser. To prevent resale of the rice, the company said it may cancel orders from customers who place more orders than are permitted. On Wednesday, farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi met with transport minister Hiromasa Nakano to ask for the ministry's cooperation in getting help from the truck industry to ensure there are enough trucks and drivers to ship the stockpiled rice to retailers. Under the no-bid method, the government will release 200,000 tons of rice produced in 2022 and another 100,000 tons from the 2021 harvest. Tokyo has also released 310,000 tons of stockpile rice to distributors through auctions since March. The National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zen-Noh), which bought 296,000 tons in the government auction, had shipped about a third of that volume as of May 22. The ministry aims to sell smaller retailers the remaining 100,000 tons of rice harvested in 2021, which is expected to be sold on at a retail price of about ¥1,800 per 5-kg bag of rice. The initial 200,000 tons sold out with 61 major retailers placing purchasing orders. Information from Jiji added
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Japan Pauses Stockpile Sales as Retailers Snap Up Rice
Japan paused its sale of rice reserves after seeing a fast response from retailers, in a positive sign for the government's efforts to temper soaring rice prices and ease consumers' cost-of-living concerns ahead of an election this summer. Major players including Rakuten Group Inc. and Pan Pacific International Holdings Corp., the parent company of popular discount store Don Quijote, were among the some 70 retailers to secure a portion of the 200,000 metric tons of the staple grain on sale Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
The Verge
3 days ago
- Business
- The Verge
Nintendo partners with third-party websites to stop Switch 2 scalpers
It is as inevitable as a sunrise that in the hours after the Switch 2 launch next week, third-party sites like Ebay will be filled with listings for the new console. But in Japan, Nintendo has announced a new partnership with Japanese third-party retail sites to combat fraudulent Switch 2 listings. Mercari, Yahoo Auctions and Yahoo Flea Market, and Rakuten Rakuma are the participating websites that will, according to a machine translation of Nintendo's announcement, 'proactively remove listings' and establish 'a collaborative system for sharing information.' Nintendo says only 'fraudulent listings' that violated the sites' terms of service agreement would be targeted for removal. In a translated statement on Yahoo Japan's website, the retailer stated that there will be a probationary period for the Switch 2 starting June 5th in which Yahoo Japan will remove listings for the console or suspending the accounts selling them. According to Yahoo Japan, it will revise the probationary period as necessary. Scalpers are the bane of any console launch. Bots flood online buying queues to snap up units before real humans can click 'Add to Cart.' Bot users then take advantage of consumer FOMO by listing consoles for exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, other sellers use deception to trick people into buying what they think is a console but is actually a picture of a box or some other worthless item. (Anti-scalpers would later use a version of this practice for the Switch 2.) Hopefully, Nintendo's plan with third-party sites in Japan works well enough to expand it to other regions.
Japan Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Japan Post launches 'digital address' system
Japan Post said Monday that it has launched a "digital address" system that links seven-digit combinations of numbers and letters to physical addresses. Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping and other websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites. People can obtain digital addresses by registering with Japan Post's Yu ID membership service. Their digital addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. Their new addresses will be linked to the codes if they submit notices of address changes. With Japan Post opening up a system for obtaining address information using the codes, e-commerce giant Rakuten and others are considering adopting it. Japan Post plans to spend about a decade to promote broad adoption of the new system.
