The majority of Japanese people are in the high-consumption age group (15 to 64 years old), accounting for 58.4% of the country's population (World Bank, 2023). The Japan population is concentrated in southern coastal cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Nagoya.

Japan is among the world's high-income developed countries with a GDP per capita of about 37,079 USD/person in 2023 (World Bank, 2024), so Japanese people have a high ability to pay for consumer goods.

Japan is an aging country with an increasing proportion of elderly people (aged 65 and over), from 26.5% in 2014 to 30.1% in 2023 (World Bank). Japan's aging population leads to significant changes in consumer behavior and preferences. Specifically, the Japanese people's demand for health care and related services is increasing, which leads to a corresponding increase in health care spending in this country. According to OECDStat data, Japanese consumers will spend up to 4.31% of their total spending on this need in 2022, while this rate was only 3.68% in 2013.

Main consumer products

According to OECDStat 2022, Japanese consumers spend up to 25% of their total expenditure on housing, utilities, and other fuels. Next, Japanese people spend about 16% on food and beverages, 8.6% on transportation/travel. In addition, they spend 8.6% on cultural and entertainment activities and 5.7% on restaurants and hotels. Compared to people in some other developed economies in RCEP (such as Australia, New Zealand), Japanese people spend a higher proportion of their expenditure on food and beverages, while spending less on transportation/travel, cultural and entertainment or restaurants and hotels, etc.

Table 1: Common consumer goods and services in Japan in 2022

Source: OECDStat, 2023

Consumption trends in Japan

Japanese people have long preferred to consume quality goods over mass-produced goods, so Japanese people's purchasing decisions are greatly influenced/dominated by the quality as well as the image/brand of the product. This is also the reason why Japanese people are willing to pay high prices to buy goods of equivalent quality. However, with the economic downturn in recent years, Japanese consumers are gradually paying more attention to price when making purchasing decisions.

Japanese consumers are generally very loyal to domestic brands, however, Japanese people (especially young people) are gradually becoming more open to innovation in shopping products, so foreign goods/brands are also gradually being consumed more in the Japanese market.

Before making a purchasing decision, Japanese consumers tend to carefully research product information/reviews, and social networks have become a useful tool for Japanese people to find out this information. In fact, Japanese consumers (especially young people) frequently search for videos and follow celebrities (influencers) to get their opinions on consumer products.

E-commerce is growing in Japan, with retail e-commerce sales increasing from 103.3 billion USD in 2017 to 148.1 billion USD in 2022 (Euromonitor International, 2023). Of which, overseas shopping via e-commerce channels, although still only a small portion, has grown significantly during this period, nearly doubling from 2.76 billion USD in 2017 to 5.1 billion USD in 2022.

Table 2: E-commerce retail sales in Japan from 2017 to 2022

Source: Euromonitor International, 2023

In Japan, the trend of environmentally friendly consumption has been developing recently when products labeled "green", "organic", etc. are increasingly consumed in this country's market..

Source: Center for WTO and International Trade

• Market size of Japan
• Trade activities of Japan
• Characteristics of Japan’s distribution system
• Vietnam's exports to Japan