Face masks, which have been hard to get due to the spread of the new coronavirus, are now becoming available in some stores. Many stores that have nothing to do with sanitary products such as bars, foreign exchange shops and jewelry stores, have begun selling face masks in an effort to make up for poor performance in their core businesses, with some stores reducing prices as competition intensifies.
At the Ameyoko shopping street in Tokyo's Ueno district on Monday afternoon, where many stores were still shuttered, face mask boxes piled up at a bubble tea shop, a jewelry store, a Chinese restaurant and other stores.
Among them is an import sporting goods retail store, which sells boxes of 50 face masks at 3,980 yen each. Since late February, the number of customers at the retail shop have declined, so they began importing face masks from China to pay the monthly rent of several hundreds of thousands of yen. A 72-year-old shop owner said, "As my core business is totally depressed, I have no choice but to sell what sells well in order to make a living."
In Tokyo's Shin-Okubo district, where there are many shops selling South Korean idol goods and cosmetic items, a store dealing with Nepalese food ingredients now sells face masks. "Now, many nearby stores are selling face masks, so our face masks are not selling very well," the 53-year-old owner of the store said.
In the beginning of April, a wholesaler with whom the owner had no prior business relationship approached him saying, "Our face masks were produced in China and Vietnam and are with warranties." So, the owner decided to sell face masks at his store to help cover sales loss. At first, each box of 50 face masks sold for 3,500 yen. But in May, as various stores began selling face masks, his store's sales are becoming sluggish. Now, the store sells face mask boxes for 2,000 yen to 2,500 yen each, which is almost the same as the purchase price. "Even though we sell face masks, customers do not come," the owner lamented.
One factor behind the sudden increase in the supply of face masks may be a surge in the number of companies producing face masks in China. According to a wholesale company based in Tokyo, since the supply of face masks in China has increased, many Chinese people living in Japan began importing face masks from China and selling them in Japan. The wholesale company was also approached by a Chinese company which it has worked with before. Since April, it has sold face masks for 30 yen to 50 yen each to stores in the Ameyoko shopping street and others. However, there are some poor-quality products. "We have returned all the face masks that were transported in a container because their ear loops easily came off," an official of the wholesale company said.
Meanwhile, drug stores and others are still facing supply shortages of face masks. A major drug store said that face masks are delivered to the store three or four days a week, but it sometimes fails to purchase face masks even though it had placed an order. Recently, some suppliers directly visit the store to sell face masks, however, the quality of their products is not assured and some products are more expensive than regular ones. On that account, the drug store refuses to buy from such suppliers. "If we sell poor-quality products, we might lose trust from customers," an official at the drug store said.
An industry group, which consists of face mask producers across the country, has quality and labeling standards for face masks so that consumers can purchase them with a sense of security. "When you buy face masks, you are recommended to check the labeling on the package and confirm what performance inspections have been done," an official of the group said.
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