COVID-19 fails to drive long-term e-commerce growth in Japan

An overview of shopping online by product category in Japan before and after the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak hasn't driven Japanese consumers to shop online more as it has done in other countries, according to the latest data from McKinsey & Company.

Across 20 product categories, five are likely to see no increase in online customer reach and six will see an increase in consumers of just one percentage point (pp) after the outbreak. For five categories, consumers are less likely to buy them online after COVID-19.

In comparison, additional data show that the coronavirus has driven more online shopping in other Asian markets like China and India...

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