16th January – 睦月

福袋　（Fukubukuro）

The special bags which contains many items inside and people generally cannot see inside until they purchase to open it.

Those are sold on the shop opening sale after New Year, generally held on 2nd or 3rd of January.

福袋 (Fukubukuro) was started at 大丸呉服店 (the Daimaru Kimono shop) in Edo period, they put many left over cloths in bags and sold. Some of the bags contained golden belts(帯 Obi), therefore many people purchased them to test their luck.

Fukubukuro generally contains the items which the total value is higher than the price being sold, and the rule is you cannot return the Fukubukuro even you did not like the items.

Fukubukuro system creates Win-Win business for both shops and customers. Because shops can put the left over goods from previous year, they can still gain profit rather than shrinkage. On the other hand the customers can purchase goods with lower price and there might be a goods that they always wanted to get but could not due to the higher price. Some customers utilize the online platforms to re-sale the goods they did not want to keep.

Well-known department store called 高島屋 (Takashimaya) sold unique Fukubukuro in 2019, one is luxurious travel package worth over 20,000,000yen (about 200,000 US dollars). Another one is the ticket for ladies Japanese world ice hockey team’s teaching session, which costs 20190yen (about 200 US dollars), this Fukubukuro includes the autographs from the team, photo with them and official goods. Those are not ‘inside the bag’ but somehow considered as Fukubukuro.

If you have a chance to be in Japan during the new years time, why don’t you get one of them and see if you can get brilliant goods with lower price!