Toward the end of every year, the media, advertising agencies, think tanks and other organizations look back on the "hit products" whose successes helped define consumer preferences over the previous 12 months.

The term ヒット商品 (hitto shōhin, hit product) is credited to the 日経流通新聞 (Nikkei Ryutsu Shimbun, Nikkei Marketing Journal), a thrice-weekly newspaper covering retailing and marketing, which was founded in 1971. Seeking to promote their nascent publication, the editors hit upon the idea of listing the previous year's most innovative and successful products and services in the format of a 相撲番付 (sumo banzuke), a stylized list of wrestler rankings written in heavy brush strokes called sumo-ji, on the front page of the year's final issue.

The Nikkei's annual ヒット商品番付 (Hitto Shohin Banzuke) itself became a hit product, and has remained the publiucation's most popular feature for 44 years.