I noticed a trend over the few years I’ve been here now and wanted to ask if anyone else has encountered this or if it’s just a very random occurrence for me.
I have lived in a few area’s now and I have noticed that whenever I find a food I like either grocery store or restaurant or even at a convenience/drug store, it always ends up being taken off the shelves at some point. For example, at a Daiso near me, they had strawberry Ramune. I like that kind and it was moderately priced. So instead of buying cokes or something like that, I’d buy about 5-10 bottles to stock up so I wouldn’t have to go out for a while to get some. About 3 months later they stopped selling them. Another example is this Chocolate oats snack that was being sold at a drug store also near me. This was slightly expensive so I didn’t get a lot but when I did get it, I’d buy at most 2 packs of it. Near the start of this year, they stopped selling it. But the Strawberry version of the snack is still there. Is there some kind of consumption law or something I may be unaware of where if something of a particular product is purchased too often or in too great a quantity must be removed from the store? Because given that this has happened not only with those two products but several other times in other prefectures this feels like more of a pattern as it happens.
13 comments
???
Stores don’t have unlimited amount of space to constantly carry every single brand and every single flavor of a product at all times.
If anything just because *you* buy something a lot, doesn’t mean the store sells a lot of it. Granted I don’t think your buying habits are anywhere near what a store would consider a regularly consistent purchase. Chances are, the item just doesn’t sell as well as you’d like to think and someone *occasionally* stocking up on a few drinks and only buying 2 packets of oats every now and then isn’t consistent enough to keep the product.
Chances are the item just isn’t selling well and they want to make space for other products.
>I may be unaware of where if something of a particular product is purchased too often or in too great a quantity must be removed from the store?
“Wow this item is profitable! Let’s stop selling it!” – is a very weird business take.
5-10 bottles of ramune and two oat packets isn’t a large quantity lol.
Japan has seasonal foods (like Melty Kiss chocolates) but recently I noticed they are also doing more limited editions of drinks, sweets, etc. and when it’s gone, there’s no guarantee it’ll be back later. Strawberry Ramune sounds like a summer drink, it’s possible they just sold out the stock. Maybe it’ll be back next summer, who knows. I’m still waiting for Asahi Craft Ginger Ale to make comeback. Sometimes the products are marked as Limited Edition.
If I like something in a convenience store here, I buy it quite a lot as I know that if I like it, it will immediately be withdrawn from sale.
I’ve raised this point a few times over the years. Especially I noticed this happening with products that were very popular. Some claimed that the reason was due to seasonality but that’s not it. I got accused of being a tin foil hatter for suggesting it’s down to customer expectations management. Distributors want to keep selling the same old product as ever but also realise people get bored so they do campaign runs of something different to spice it up.
Just look at how combenis never, ever take shit products like the triangle sandwiches off their shelves. No one really likes them but they’re at a price point that competes with all the other marginally more appealing food on offer. It’s all extremely, carefully calibrated. If these more interesting, better products were allowed to persist on the shelves, the high profit junk they sell would fall off in demand and they’d just be stuck with higher cost food.
This post is giving main character syndrome lol
Just search for the thing on Rakuten and buy a case of it.
Yeah that’s the way the Japanese processed food market is fundamentally organized.
There are just a handful of products that are reliably available year round for years. Then each manufacturer produces time or location limited products throughout the year that are gone as soon as they’re sold out or intentionally removed from the shelves after a certain date to make room for the next new thing.
I think the main reason is to get the fad-conscious Japanese consumers to keep spending and keep coming to stores.
Sadly, the average Japanese consumer will try the new thing once or twice and then go back to the standard options.
As such, the manufacturers know that sales of novelty items will peter out over time, and can’t financially rationalize continued production because of a handful of loyal consumers like you.
I’m the same way. I don’t want novelty. I want to find the best stuff and stick with it for years. But the best stuff in Japan is always time limited and it’s only very accidentally the best. I find the perennial offerings to be extremely uninspiring, so I’m also constantly frustrated.
Manufactured scarcity is a thing here. It’s well established that Japanese food manufacturers have been artificially limiting popular products to certain times of year in order to create a sense of pressure and anxiety in the consumer that if they don’t buy now, they might miss their chance for a whole year.
There is no way you deserve all the snark you’re getting for asking about this. Hell, this is the first year I saw Kirin Akiaji actually last on shelves into aki.
Variety is the spice of life.
Every year there are trends for each seasons – new one off products and season flavors.
It’s autumn so our staples are chestnut and sweet potato. One off flavor seems to be white chocolate this year. Also seeing a lot of flavored black teas.
Who remembers fizzy coffee or salty watermelon soda? While its sad that new things are limited, it does mean there is lots of innovation within the food manufacturing sphere.
As an avid black thunder lover, I am always sad when they release something for a limited time. But it means we will get something new in the future. Bring back the black thunder ice cream cake!
Nearly all food/drinks are seasonal in Japan. It’s only a handful that stay all the time. It’s really annoying! Even sprite is seasonal at my local supermarket.
It is especially frustrating ，，，
Drink and snack marketing here is brutal. There are some products that are pretty much permanent, but most are “Here today, gone tomorrow.”
Dr Pepper, Mr Pibb, Mello Yellow, 7-11 Mexican burritos, plain American taste Doritos, the list goes on.
Like the cherry blossoms, these limited merchandise is meant to remind us of the impermanence of life.