How Japanese vending machines for duty-free goods aim to make it easy for Chinese tourists to buy medicine and snacks in Tokyo, Osaka, Hokkaido and elsewhere
- A tourism platform’s vending machines at airports, train and bus stations allow visitors to collect pre-orders of everything from Japanese shampoo to detergent
- The company requires shoppers to order online 3 days before pickup and payment, and hopes to catch the wave of Chinese and other tourists returning to Japan
Japan has long led the way in making shopping easier with its vending machines, but one company is now extending that convenience to foreign visitors purchasing duty-free goods, which can often be a time-consuming process.
Travellers can pre-order items online and pick them up at automated retail machines at airports or other transport hubs in major cities including Tokyo, removing the hassle of filling in duty-free documents, waiting in line at shops to get refunds, or carrying around purchases during stays.
The website is in both Chinese and English, with the products mainly targeting young female visitors from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, WAmazing said.
“If they make an order online, shoppers no longer need to take time searching for their favourite items at a chemist, which may only be labelled in Japanese,” says Kaori Kishino, WAmazing’s marketing manager.
Two more machines are expected to be set up in the stations serving terminals 1 and 2 at Tokyo’s Narita Airport by March.
Orders need to be placed at least three days in advance. It takes less than three minutes to pick up the bought items at the outlets. The process includes scanning a QR code, identification verification through facial recognition and passport data, and payment.
For manufacturers of the items, the service is another channel to extend their visibility. For makers based in rural areas, where establishing duty-free outlets is difficult because of labour shortages and the language barrier, the service helps connect them to a lucrative market they might otherwise miss.
WAmazing, which also offers free SIM cards to visitors, said it aims to install the duty-free vending machines at all airports in Japan where international arrivals are expected.
Aoki is pinning his hopes on the number of people visiting from mainland China – which previously made up a large portion of arrivals – returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Until recently, China severely restricted overseas travel for citizens under its strict “zero-Covid” policy, and Japan strengthened its border controls for arrivals from the country after coronavirus cases exploded there.
The government hopes that the increase in visitors to Japan will stimulate tourist consumption. It has maintained its goal of welcoming 60 million inbound travellers in 2030, as part of hopes that the country’s total consumption will reach 15 trillion yen (US$116 billion).
So far, the most spent by travellers to Japan was 4.81 trillion yen in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, when the number of foreign visitors hit a record high of 31.88 million.
The number of duty-free shops across the country grew to 52,000 in 2021, compared to fewer than 40,000 in 2016, according to the Japan Tourism Agency.
Kishino said some stores at Japanese airports remain closed because of manpower shortages, leaving inbound tourists disappointed.
The duty-free vending machines will be “a convenient way [for tourists] to use [their] time while staying in Japan when [they] are already required to wait in line to get in and out of the country due to the coronavirus pandemic”, she said.
