Wild scenes were witnessed in Shibuya’s 109 on Jan. 2 as the scramble for fukubukuro ("lucky draw bags") got underway. The store opened its doors at 6:45 a.m., to let in long lines of teen shoppers, some of whom had been queuing since midnight to get their hands on a bag of unknown goodies from their favorite brand. Once inside, according to Shibuya Keizai Shimbun, staff struggled to maintain order as the teen hordes waged war to snap up bargain bags.
Uptown in Ginza, things were, of course, a little more refined, but competition for some of the choicest department store fukubukuro was fierce. According to Yomiuri Online, hot items like Printemp’s Jyoshi Kai (women’s meet up) bag, sold out in the first day they went on sale.
Swift sales of fukubukuro, coupled with healthy sales figures for the first day’s trading for Tokyo’s department stores, have been taken as good indications that the Japanese economy is recovering. The newly refurbished Mitsukoshi Ginza, which was reopened in September, last year reported an increase in sales of 40 percent for the same day last year. Part of the draw for customers was the lucky bags that stores claim contain items exceeding the bag’s retail price.