The era of "explosive buying" for international students in Japan is over! Japanese business countermeasures under the epidemic: go to China

　　The “buy, buy, buy” situation of international students in Japan will end from next year.

　　Recently, the Japanese government has finalized guidelines to adjust the tax-free shopping plan for foreigners entering the country during the tax reform in 2022.

The details exposed by the Japanese media showed that in this adjustment, the current foreign exchange law has reduced the conditions for tax-free shopping as long as “non-residents” are allowed to be “short-term stay” tourists with a residence status of less than 90 days.

　　According to the definition of the Japanese government, foreign students, technical intern trainees, graduate students and other long-term foreigners staying in Japan, as well as Japanese people overseas due to work and other reasons, are all “non-residents”.

This means that the tax-free shopping treatment originally enjoyed by the above-mentioned groups within half a year of entry will be cancelled.

　　After the announcement of the upcoming adjustment of the tax exemption policy, a Japanese Chinese who did not want to be named told China Business News that due to the epidemic, the Japanese government has strictly controlled the entry of foreign students and other groups since last year. According to the current policy, current international students in Japan, etc. The tax-free consumption treatment for six months of group entry has already expired. Therefore, the behavior of overseas students through tax-free measures has been eased recently.

But he does not deny that there were indeed cases of "crazy" purchasing by overseas students.

　　The above-mentioned Chinese in Japan also stated that, compared to policy adjustments, the current epidemic that is still recurring has more severe impact on Japan's duty-free industry.

Three cases of Omi Kiron strain infection have been confirmed in Japan.

Out of concerns about the spread of the epidemic caused by the new strain, the Japanese government temporarily closed the country on December 1st for a period of one month.

Strictly prevent tax evasion

　　According to Japanese media reports, one of the reasons for the above tax policy adjustment is that when Japanese businesses shop for international students, according to the current tax exemption policy, they must verify whether the international students themselves are doing part-time work.

As a result, companies must send commissioners to check the information of shoppers on the spot-this has undoubtedly increased the labor pressure on companies in Japan, where labor is already short.

Moreover, the confirmation process is relatively cumbersome, and the company believes that it will also affect the shopping experience of other consumers to some extent.

　　In addition, not all companies strictly abide by this regulation, and those companies that do not seriously investigate the flow of consumers have also triggered complaints from their peers.

　　In fact, the adjustment of the Japanese government's tax-free shopping policy for foreigners has moved early last year.

In April last year, the National Tax Agency of Japan introduced the electronic customer information mechanism for the first time, and it has spread throughout Japan after October.

Then it was discovered that many international students and some "non-resident Japanese" had suspicious "binge buying" phenomena.

　　The current tax exemption system from July 2018 shows that general goods (home appliances, handicrafts, leather bags, etc.) or consumables (food, fruits, cosmetics, etc.) with a total amount of 5,000 yen to 500,000 yen or less can enjoy tax exemption discount.

These duty-free shopping products must be taken out of the country for use and cannot be resold.

If a violation is found, consumption tax will be levied by the National Tax Agency.

　　According to Japanese media reports, as of June this year, the consumption records of 30,000 duty-free shops in Japan show that about 26,000 people spent 4 million yen in duty-free shops.

Among them, 1,837 people bought duty-free goods worth more than 1 million yen.

The tax-free consumption record of 69 people is 100 million yen.

The most recorded record is that 32,000 tax-free products have been purchased cumulatively, and the cumulative tax-free consumption has exceeded 12 trillion yen.

In the consumption records submitted by a Tokyo department store to the National Tax Agency of Japan, there have been many times a record of tax-free consumption of 495,000 yen, which is close to the upper limit of tax-free shopping.

　　Cosmetics, electronic products, luxury goods, etc., are usually the commodities that appear the most in the aforementioned tax-free shopping records.

The above consumption is mainly concentrated in duty-free shops in Tokyo and Osaka.

　　According to Japanese media reports, the aforementioned consumption records show that a Japanese woman in her 50s who lived in Southeast Asia had consumed up to 100 million yen (approximately (5.6 million yuan); and more than 10 Japanese bought tens of millions of yen worth of duty-free goods within a year.

Even some Japanese people will go abroad and return home after the half-year tax-free period expires, and continue to buy duty-free goods repeatedly.

　　In this regard, the National Tax Agency of Japan believes that the aforementioned long-term foreigners in Japan and some “non-resident Japanese” spending such a high price to buy duty-free goods are “unusual”, and there is reason to suspect that some of them will be duty-free, such as Resell at after-tax prices or markups to earn the difference.

The National Tax Agency of Japan introduced electronic records of customer information in order to crack down on tax evasion.

Waiting for overseas tourists?

　　Japanese media believe that the effectiveness of the implementation of the above-mentioned New Deal remains to be seen. After all, under the latest adjustment of the Japanese government's immigration policy, overseas students and returnees from Japan are temporarily unable to go to Japan.

Compared with the above groups, Japanese businesses are waiting for the arrival of overseas tourists.

　　According to data released by the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), 17,700 foreigners entered Japan in September 2021, a decrease of 99.2% compared with the approximately 2.27 million in September 2019, which is still the lowest level in history.

According to data released in 2019 before the epidemic, the consumption of visitors to Japan increased by 6.5% from the previous year, reaching 4.8113 trillion yen (approximately RMB 29.962 million), a record high.

Among them, Chinese tourists reached 9.5943 million, a record high, accounting for 30% of the total.

　　The inability of foreign tourists to come will undoubtedly have a huge impact on Japan's duty-free industry.

Since the outbreak, news of the closure of duty-free shops has been reported in many places in Japan, including Tokyo, Okinawa and Fukuoka.

At present, at least 20 duty-free shops dedicated to tourists across Japan have completely closed their shops or have announced plans to close their shops.

Among them, there are many businesses well-known to Chinese consumers. For example, "Takashimaya" also officially closed its duty-free shops in Tokyo last year.

Duty-free shops in major Japanese cities operated by another veteran department store, Mitsukoshi Isetan, are also experiencing an unprecedented winter.

　　Under the epidemic, whether to passively wait for overseas tourists or actively expand new sales channels has become a choice that Japanese businesses must face.

Since the epidemic, many Japanese businesses that rely on Chinese consumers have taken the lead in transforming, either by going out of the Japanese market and opening their first stores in China, or choosing to try Chinese online sales channels, actively embracing China, which is the first to recover after the epidemic. market.

　　On December 4, the official store of Japan's most popular comic magazine "Weekly Shonen JUMP" gathered nine JUMP IPs to debut in Shanghai. This is also the world's first official store outside of Japan.

NITORI, Japan's largest home furnishing chain, has also planned to open 10-20 stores in China this year.

Japanese companies that have plans to increase the Chinese market in the future also include Japanese brands such as Uniqlo and Lawson that are already well-known to Chinese consumers.

　　In response, Chen Yan, executive director of the Japanese Enterprise (China) Research Institute, told Yicai.com reporters that the delay in opening up the Japanese tourism market has boosted the transformation of the Japanese retail industry to the offline market in China.

　　Compared with those Japanese companies that directly opened stores in China, there are still many Japanese businesses that are testing China's e-commerce platforms during the epidemic.

　　Takayama Hiroshi, deputy director of the Shanghai Office of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), told the CBN reporter that before the epidemic, many small and medium-sized enterprises in the Japanese retail industry were busy receiving a continuous stream of Chinese tourists, and they generally believed that there was no need to enter China's cross-border. E-commerce platforms may export to China.

Takayama Bo said, "But when the epidemic hits and foreign tourists cannot enter the country, these small and medium-sized enterprises are particularly anxious, and they think of using cross-border e-commerce channels to sell products to the Chinese market.

"

　　Prior to this, Ryukakusan, one of the best-selling products of duty-free shops in Japan, also began to formally enter the Chinese market through cooperation with Chinese partners.

Last year, Japanese pharmaceutical company Ryukakusan and China Resources Sanjiu formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement.

Soon, Japan's Ryukakusan will appear directly on China's e-commerce platform, making it convenient for Chinese consumers to buy it without going abroad.

　　Gao Shanbo also said frankly, “It was difficult at the beginning. Because China’s e-commerce platforms are emerging in endlessly, and the speed of iteration is very fast, but through gradual exploration, a path has been found, such as reliable and professional cooperation at this stage. Partners, enter high-quality e-commerce platforms such as Tmall International self-operated stores, and promote cross-border e-commerce business".

　　From the data point of view, the volume of trade between China and Japan in 2020 has almost zero growth compared with the previous year, but this year the trade between the two countries has accelerated, and Japan's exports to China have shown a recovery growth.

According to the trade data for the first 11 months of this year released by the General Administration of Customs on the 7th, Japan is my country's fourth largest trading partner. The total value of Sino-Japanese trade is 2.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.7%, accounting for 6.2%.

Among them, exports to Japan were 979.03 billion yuan, an increase of 8.8%; imports from Japan were 1.22 trillion yuan, an increase of 12.2%; the trade deficit with Japan was 242.28 billion yuan, an increase of 28.4%.

　　Japanese businesses have also seen great potential in it.

A "Survey on Overseas Business of Japanese Companies" conducted by JETRO recently showed that 76.7% of companies wish to expand exports, and among "countries and regions wishing to expand exports", China is the first choice of 56.7% of companies.

　　Author: Pan Yinru