One in five Japanese buy groceries on the internet
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into internet foodstuff delivery services, implying in Japanese ingredients more than finished product, I think, or in other words, general groceries as in the headline.
Demographics
Between the 6th and 8th of February 2012 1,108 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.
It must be because I live in a posh block of flats as there’s definitely more than just 4.5% of the residents who regularly get home delivery from the Co-op. The wife occasionally shops for food online, but I don’t think a bag of rice once a month really counts as home delivery groceries.
Research results
Q1: How often do you shop online for home delivery groceries? (Sample size=1,108)
| Regularly (to SQ) | 4.5% |
| Sometimes (to SQ) | 14.4% |
| Have in the past, but not now | 21.1% |
| Never | 60.0% |
Q1SQ: Which home delivery grocery service do you use? (Sample size=209, multiple answer)
| Votes | Percentage | |
| Online store at Rakuten or other virtual mall | 90 | 43.1% |
| Online version of a bricks and mortar supermarket | 67 | 32.1% |
| Co-operative online store | 65 | 31.1% |
| Other corporate-run net store | 46 | 22.0% |
| Other | 4 | 1.9% |
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I know where I live “Yoshi-kei” is quite common. My parents in law order it (offline). You kind of choose what you want from an A menu, a B menu, C menu, etc. Each menu has a theme such as “washoku”, “western”, or “quick meals” and a slightly different price. They send you a package every day that includes just the amount of ingredients you need to cook whatever is on the menu for that day (including pre-made sauces and stuff like that).
I’m surprised that people are so willing to do so. I know it’s convenient, but there are a couple of issues I have with it. For starters, I think it is a little expensive (especially considering you just get ingredients for dinner). I also think that while it seems to be economic to receive just what you need to make your meal, the delivery and packaging (like plastic bags for a couple of leaves of lettuce) seems to negate that. One more thing- I don’t think the origin of the ingredients is stated. I don’t know if the ingredients are all Japanese. Even if they are, there are some places I wouldn’t want to be eating beef/meat products or vegetables from at this point in time. I don’t know about other online options– if they don’t list the origins of their products, that may account for the huge “used to do so” chunk of the results.
At any rate, this is an interesting survey. I didn’t realize that so many people ordered online!