200
Fashion Jobs
SAMSOE
Account Manager no (Menswear)
Permanent · OSLO
BEST SELLER
Bestseller Søker Business Controller Til Vero Moda
Permanent · OSLO
ABBOTT
Territory Manager
Permanent ·
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) -Tønsberg - Farmandstredet
Permanent · TØNSBERG
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Kristiansand - Sandens
Permanent · KRISTIANSAND
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Horten - Sjøsiden Shopping Center
Permanent · HORTEN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Down Town Kjøpesenter
Permanent · PORSGRUNN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Kristiansand - Sørlandssenteret
Permanent · KRISTIANSAND
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Bergen - Oasen Senter
Permanent · BERGEN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Hafrsfjord - Amfi Madla
Permanent · HAFRSFJORD
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Straume - Sartor Storsenter
Permanent · STRAUME
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Stavanger - Søregata
Permanent · STAVANGER
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Kilden Kjøpesenter
Permanent · STAVANGER
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Bergen Galleriet
Permanent · BERGEN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Bergen - Horisont
Permanent · BERGEN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Sandnes - Kvadrat
Permanent · SANDNES
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Kongsberg - Stortorvet
Permanent · KONGSBERG
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Sandefjord - Hvaltrovet
Permanent · SANDEFJORD
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Arendal - Alti Senter
Permanent · ARENDAL
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Drammen - Magasinet
Permanent · DRAMMEN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Drammen - Gulskogen Senter
Permanent · DRAMMEN
RITUALS
Butikkselger (Sommerhjelp) - Bryne - m44 Kjøpesenter
Permanent · BRYNE
By
Reuters
Published
Jun 19, 2018
Reading time
2 minutes
Download
Download the article
Print
Text size

Amazon effect: online shopping pushes down Japan's core inflation

By
Reuters
Published
Jun 19, 2018

The spread of online shopping in Japan is dragging down consumer inflation, the central bank said, highlighting the “Amazon effect” on prices and the challenges policy makers face as they try to pull the world’s third-biggest economy out of years of stagnation.

Japanese consumers have been buying more clothes and daily goods online in the past few years, partly because more dual-income households are using e-commerce to save time, the BOJ said - archiv


As bricks-and-mortar retailers lower prices to remain competitive with online shops, core consumer prices are being pushed down by 0.1 to 0.2 percentage point, the Bank of Japan said in a research paper on Monday.

Online retailers are able to charge lower prices because of the money they save by not operating physical stores, the BOJ said, citing research comparing prices in Japan and nine other countries.

Japan’s consumer price index does not measure prices at online retailers, but it does capture prices charged at retailers with physical stores, and some of these retailers may be lowering prices to compete with their online peers, the BOJ said.

BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda last week said the “Amazon effect” may place downward pressure on prices in advanced economies, because consumers can easily compare prices and buy the cheapest items available.

Amazon.com Inc, the world’s largest online retailer, has increased its number of shipment centres in Japan over the past 10 years, which has lowered average distances and likely decreased shipping costs, the central bank said in its report.

Core consumer inflation decelerated to a 0.7 percent annual increase in April, disappointing economists inside the BOJ who expected inflation to accelerate toward the central bank’s 2 percent inflation target.

Despite over five years of massive stimulus, inflation has remained stubbornly low in Japan with policy makers increasingly nervous about the de-merits of the prolonged easy policy.

The BOJ is expected to downgrade its consumer price forecasts at its next meeting in July, and economists say the central bank is already laying the groundwork for such a move.

“The impact of online shopping may become the BOJ’s next talking point, but it sounds more like an excuse to me,” said Hiroshi Miyazaki, senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

“This is not a sufficient explanation for why prices in Japan have been rising less compared with other countries.”

Japanese consumers have been buying more clothes and daily goods online in the past few years, partly because more dual-income households are using e-commerce to save time, the BOJ said, citing government data.

The consumer price index shows prices for these goods are lower than prices charged for other items, which suggests that existing retailers are keeping prices low to avoid losing customers to Internet shopping.

The BOJ did caution that its calculation for how much downward pressure online shopping places on core CPI is based on limited data, and that it is important to closely monitor the trend in the future.

© Thomson Reuters 2024 All rights reserved.