As pandemic spurs tidying-up frenzy, Japan's market for 2nd-hand goods booms

TOKYO- When Japan announced a state of emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic this year, people were urged to declutter their homes to pass the time, with Tokyo's governor even roping in household-organizing celebrity Marie Kondo in promotional videos.

Many have taken that message to heart and the market for second-hand luxury goods is booming as a result.

Mitsuko Iwama, a 71-year-old housewife, is a case in point. Pre-pandemic, she would have been spending a lot of time at the gym but after being stuck at home and cleaning her closets more often, she decided to part ways with kimonos that her parents bought her decades ago.

"I thought it was a waste to leave the kimonos just hanging up, and if someone from a younger generation would wear them, that would make me happy," said Iwama, who sold 22 kimonos for 4,000 yen ($38).

Buysell Technologies Co Ltd, the company used by Iwama which collects goods from people's homes and resells them through online stores and at old-style in-person auctions, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of pandemic-induced tidying.

Visits to people's homes surged 31 percent to 20,990 in October from a year ago, the company said, adding that three quarters of its customers are in their 50s or older, selling kimonos, luxury handbags and jewelry.

Similarly, Mercari Inc, which operates a popular flea market app, reported a 52% jump in sales for its July-September quarter compared with the same period a year earlier.

A surge in the value of gold this year as the pandemic spurred demand for safe-haven assets has also prompted people to sell rings and necklaces that had just been sitting around, adds BuySell Chief Executive Kyohei Iwata.

"There's a term in Japanese, "danshari", which means minimize your life. People's mindsets have changed that way," he said. 

(Reporting by Kim Kyung Hoon; Writing by Ju-min Park; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

-reuters-

Marie Kondo for smartphones? Google's digital detox helps users reclaim joy

MANILA – Google is urging Filipinos to use a built-in feature of its Android operating system to disconnect, declutter and spark joy in their digital lives.

Baked into Android 9 Pie, the Digital Wellbeing Dashboard allows users to track and control their use of applications and control how many notifications they receive and in what form.

Google acknowledged the inevitable comparisons between the dashboard and Japan's Marie Kondo, who exploded on Netflix by encouraging people to organize their living spaces and keep only items that spark joy.

"KonMari is great but it doesn't work on USB cables... The awareness component is a large part. Providing the tools so that they can be aware of what’s happening, that is, I think, some of the most powerful things we can do," said Glenn Murphy, Android UX director for Google. 

"These moments of planned disconnection actually feel joyful. People are happiest when they’re productive on their phone. We can enable technology to reduce stress in peoples lives," Murphy said.

Google's Android is on 2 billion devices worldwide and dominates Apple's iOS operating system in terms of reach. The Philippines has 60 million smartphone screens based on combined data from local carriers.

Majority of smartphone users around the world have expressed "some concern" over the amount of time they spend online, according to the Android UX study "Toward JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out and the Freedom of Disconnecting."

Users also felt obliged to respond to every notification they received causing undue stress, according to the global poll of cunsumers aged 18 to 65.

"One of the things we’ve found out is that time spent using a product doesn’t mean happiness. Time is not correlated with satisfaction," Murphy said during a conference call with Southeast Asian journalists. 

"What we’ve seen is that technology is used in so many different ways. Phones are super useful but they can also be distracting," he added. 

Digital Wellbeing has a "Wind Down" feature where the entire screen turns to black and white so that "interesting images" will not be able to draw users attention especially at night, Murphy said.

Users can completely turn off notifications including pop-ups on the screen while retaining access to productivity apps such as maps. 

Developers should adapt to the rapidly changing technology by creating the right tools for consumers, Murphy said.

"If you have the right tools to use the phone in the ways that they want to, then I totally see this to bring more balance in people’s lives," he said. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Japan's decluttering guru Kondo now has an app for tidying up

AUSTIN, TEXAS - The newest tool for internationally acclaimed organizing guru Marie Kondo in her global battle against messy rooms is an app.

“My goal is to have as many people as possible who can get the job done in tidying up,” she said in an interview after speaking at the South by Southwest technology conference in Austin, Texas over the weekend.

“To achieve that, I’m implementing various measures, one of which is the app to support decluttering," said the woman whose name has been turned into a verb by followers who clean out clutter at home and say that have "Kondoed" their closets.

Kondo is known to global audiences for her best-selling books, including “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,” which has been translated from Japanese to more than 40 languages, with more than 7 million copies sold worldwide.

The app called "KonMari," was launched a few months ago and gives out organizing tips, allows people to share before and after pictures, and provides a platform for her followers to socialize.

The followers of the woman who earned a spot on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list in 2015 call themselves “Konverts."

But her critics see her as an irritating presence with a cult-like following, harping on the glaringly obvious need to be better organized.

Kondo has made an art of folding clothes into optimal shapes for storage and her KonMari disciples see her words as a philosophy about seeking a happier life by putting their homes in order.

Kondo spends 80 percent of her time outside of Japan, but with the help of technology, she wants to knock on the doors of more homes around the world.

"Tidying up is a broad theme that is relevant to anyone in any country," said Kondo, who has a knack for decluttering her quotes.

(Reporting by Sachi Jenkins; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Nick Zieminski)

source: news.abs-cbn.com