News On Japan

Yahoo Japan, PayPay merge malls against Amazon, Rakuten

Jul 06 (Nikkei) - Z Holdings will merge Yahoo Japan's online shopping platform with its subsidiary's e-commerce service to step up competition with rivals Rakuten and Amazon, Nikkei has learned.

Yahoo! Shopping will take over PayPay Mall services in October to facilitate the speedier trade and delivery of a predicted 400 million items.

PayPay Mall was launched in 2019 with sellers trading electronics, cosmetics, apparel and luxury brands among other items. The merger will broaden the Yahoo! Shopping range and increase its appeal.

Tie-ups between Yahoo! Shopping and messaging app Line, a subsidiary of Z Holdings, will also be strengthened. Yahoo! will provide official Line accounts to businesses that open stores on the platform, boosting product awareness and customer access.

Yahoo has 86 million users, PayPay 47 million and Line 92 million. The three services have hitherto been poorly connected.

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JR East has launched a preview version of its new online Shinkansen booking platform, JRE GO, promising reservations in as little as one minute and easier handling of sudden schedule changes.

A 37-year-old father arrested over the alleged abandonment of his son's body in a forest in Kyoto Prefecture may have contacted associates to say the child had gone missing before the boy's school informed the family, investigators said.

A bear that had remained in a residential area in central Sendai since early Sunday morning was euthanized last night in an emergency cull. No injuries were reported.

Police investigating the death of an 11-year-old boy whose body was found in a forest in Kyoto Prefecture believe his father moved the remains between several locations over a number of days in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime.

A large and powerful Typhoon No. 4, internationally named Sinlaku, was located near the Mariana Islands and moving north-northeast as of the latest update. The storm is expected to gradually shift its course eastward and pass southeast of the Ogasawara Islands around April 18, before making its closest approach around April 19.

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A shortage of naphtha, a key petrochemical feedstock used in a wide range of products, is pushing up the cost of housing materials in Japan and raising concerns that home prices could climb by as much as 30%.

Running a business with integrity and good values is the highest road most owners strive to be on. However, sometimes being good isn’t enough to spare you from legal trouble.

TOTO said on April 16 that it will gradually resume new orders for its unit bath products from April 20 after securing a clearer outlook for raw material procurement.

Tokyo’s and Osaka’s flagship theme parks are both marking their 25th anniversaries this year, raising expectations that milestone celebrations could provide a boost to visitor numbers and earnings.

As tensions in the Middle East continue, 42 vessels linked to Japan remain stranded in the Persian Gulf, raising concerns over supply chains for naphtha, a key raw material used in plastics and coatings, with manufacturers warning that prolonged disruptions could drive up prices for everyday goods and housing materials.

The Japan Painting Contractors Association has requested the government to secure stable supplies of materials, warning that concerns over shortages of paint and thinner derived from naphtha have become increasingly severe.

Crude oil futures surged sharply as concerns over supply disruptions intensified amid renewed uncertainty surrounding the situation in Iran, pushing prices above $105 per barrel on April 12th and driving Japan long-term interest rates—represented by the benchmark 10-year government bond yield—to their highest levels in nearly three decades.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda warned on April 14th that rising crude oil prices driven by escalating tensions in the Middle East could act as a drag on Japan’s economy, signaling growing concern within the central bank over external cost pressures.