184 Best Places to Shop in Japan

The Ginza branch of Japan's first department-store chain has been open since 1930 and remains the largest department store in the area, with a sprawling grass-covered terrace on the ninth floor that provides a respite from the shopping bustle. Away from the multiple floors of fashion and style, the two basement floors have an impressive selection of delicacies, while the eighth floor is home to the Art Aquarium (fee required), where fish are displayed in a vibrant collection of tanks.

The famous fan shop Miyawaki Baisen-an has been in business since 1823, delighting customers not only with its fine collection of lacquered, scented, painted, and paper fans, but also with the old-world atmosphere of the shop itself.

Hidden on a narrow backstreet, this stylish and beautifully refurbished store sells various souvenirs and Nara specialties, including handwoven, sun-bleached linens that are a local specialty known as Nara sarashi. You can enjoy green tea and Japanese sweets while admiring views of the garden at the on-site café.

This Tokyo flagship of a homewares store established in Nara City in 1716 stocks a wide range of items and tools for your daily life, including the Hasami line of crockery made with Nagasaki porcelain. Look for the store's signature tea towels, which are made of hanafukin, a traditional cotton cloth originally used as mosquito netting, and are are renowned for their soft texture and high absorbency.

Although many shops here now sell cheap knickknacks (often, not made in Japan) rather than traditional Japanese crafts, this street's atmosphere makes it worth a stroll on your way to Senso-ji. Things here are as lively as they were back in the Edo period. The street's entrance is marked by the giant red lantern at the Kaminari-mon; it ends a couple of hundred meters north, shortly before the Hozo-mon gate.

Kimono and yukata (cotton kimono) fabrics, traditional accessories, swords, and festival costumes at reasonable prices are all for sale at this Asakusa arcade. It runs east of the area's movie theaters, between Rokuku Broadway Street and the Senso-ji Complex.

Kyoto's central food market is located elsewhere, but restaurateurs and homecooks visit this long, narrow street to select fresh produce and other foods. In recent years, the covered arcade has started to include souvenir shops in addition to tempting edibles. Ogling is fine. At some places you might be offered samples. If that happens, don't be shy—have a taste.

To the east of the Hankyu Grand Building is NU Chayamachi—a collection of small boutiques, both local and foreign, and some good cafés.

The highlight of Yokaichi Street is this shop where the sixth-generation owner and his son make distinctive candles by hand. It's the only workshop remaining in Ehime Prefecture that still does this process entirely by hand, and you can see them at work during a visit. The smaller candles are inexpensive, but the larger ones are surprisingly costly. 

“Omote” means “face” or “mask,” and this chic little boutique on the old-fashioned Kirakira Tachibana shopping street a station away from Tokyo Skytree stocks every variety imaginable. The selection includes Japanese-style clown masks and Venetian masks, as well as those from many periods and regions in Japan. There's a broad range of prices too, so you can find unique souvenirs here whatever your budget. Note, though, that the shop is only open Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm to 6 pm.

Despised and adored with equal zeal, another of Tadao Ando's adventures in concrete is this controversial project, which replaced the charming Dojunkai Aoyama Apartments and its selection of small shops and galleries. The mall's six, wedge-shape floors have a mix of brand-name heavy hitters and smaller stores with mid- to high-end shoes, bags, and other fashions. After checking out the latest in Japanese outure, you can take a break in one of the on-site restaurants or cafés.

Established in 1916 and very successful serving members of the post-war occupation forces, this shop is the perfect place to find reasonably priced, traditional handicrafts—painted screens, pottery, chopsticks, dolls—that make great souvenirs. Like many area businesses of late, this shop has moved off of the main drag of Omotesando and onto a back street between Dior and Chanel.

With 1,200 stores, selling everything from fashion and crafts to daily goods, this network of covered arcades is perfect for a day of shopping, especially on a rainy day. Highlights include the traditional knives sold at Miura and the used kimono of Komehyo, but you will also find a small antiques market here, on the grounds of Osu Kannon temple on the 18th and 28th of each month. To get here, take the Tsurumai Line to Osu Kannon Station (one stop south of Fushimi).

With a selection of 25,000 music boxes, Otaru Orgel Doh is Japan's biggest music box emporium. It is also Otaru's most famous store, housed in a beautiful brick building, with an iconic 5½-meter bronze steam clock standing outside its doors. The giant clock chimes and steams every 15 minutes and is a sibling to the steam clock found in Vancouver's Gas Town. The music boxes range from cute toys for just a few thousand yen to the fine craftsmanship of movements such as the 72-note Sankyo Orpheus. The melodies played by the music boxes vary from classics such as Pachelbel's Canon to the latest anime and Disney tunes.

Zakka is what the Japanese call small knickknacks and gifts, and this eccentric store is brimming with zakka from the coffers of local fashion designers, artists, magazine editors, celebrities, and other stylish Tokyo denizens. The carefully curated goods are fixed up and resold, with an option to give a portion of the profit to charity. It is tucked inside the Brick Square complex, next to an English rose garden.

Once a grubby warren of niche electronics merchants, Radio Kaikan has been revitalized as a brightly lit, bustling mall of Japanese pop culture accessories and electronic gizmos. Consider starting at the top and browsing your way down the ten floors of independent vendors selling mini–spy cameras, cell phones disguised as stun guns, manga, plastic models, gadgets, and oddball hobby supplies.

Next to the Midtown Tokyo complex, this fashion-forward boutique brings together a cluster of stores, with three floors of cutting-edge clothing, some of which looks like it came straight from a Tokyo or Paris catwalk, and accessories for men and women.

Another brand with multiple Nakano Broadway outlets, Robot Robot is the place otaku go for figurines and action figures. On the third-floor Robot Robot 1 specializes in Japanese anime and manga characters, such as Gundam, Dragonball, and One Piece, while Robot Robot 2 is packed with U.S. favorites, with heaps of choices from the Star Wars, Disney, and Marvel franchises. Down on the second floor, Robot Robot 3 is a bit more of a mishmash, though it's a good stop for anyone into Studio Ghibli productions such as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.

You could easily spend a whole day exploring the retail areas of this complex of shops, restaurants, residential and commercial towers, a nine-screen cineplex, the Grand Hyatt Tokyo hotel, and the Mori Art Museum—all wrapped around the TV Asahi studios and sprawled out in five zones located between the Roppongi intersection and Azabu Juban. The shops here emphasize eye-catching design and chichi brands, although finding a particular shop can be a hassle given the building's Escher-like layout. To navigate, go to the information center to retrieve a floor guide with color-coded maps in English.

One-room Ryushido sells exquisite paper products for calligraphers: paper of varying thicknesses, writing brushes, ink sticks, ink stones, and paperweights. The shop has a classic, artisanal feel.

This store sells traditional Japanese dolls, from kimekomi (animals representing the zodiac calendar) to the samurai and kimono-clad ladies. There are also good examples of oshie (three-dimensional pictures made of silk). The tiny shop is packed with cloth for doll making, cupboards for hiding doll-making supplies, and, of course, dolls.

Santica Town is an underground shopping mall with 120 shops and 30 restaurants. It extends for several blocks beneath Flower Road south from San-no-miya Station. It's closed the third Wednesday of the month.

If you're in Hokkaido to ski, snowboard, hike, climb, or bike, then the Sapporo Factory mall is the best place to stock up on any missing gear. Within the mall you'll find specialist stores for Arc'teryx, Descente, Mont-bell, Columbia, Mammut, Rossignol, and the North Face. The food court has a wide range of vendors, and there's a cinema complex with IMAX on the second floor. Sapporo Factory is a 15-minute walk southeast from Sapporo Station.

A teenage girl's dream, this nine-floor outlet is filled with small stores where the merchandise screams kitsch and trendy. On weekends, dance concerts and fashion shows are often staged at the front entrance.

These vertical malls filled with small retail shops and boutiques are all within walking distance of one another in the commercial heart of Shibuya. Shopping options range from stores carrying designer brands to an entire floor with game and anime goods. There's a rooftop garden and a basement full of restaurants.

Inside the building immediately adjacent to the station is one of Shibuya's newest landmarks—home not only to the Shibuya Sky viewpoint, but also to numerous stores (carrying some brands you know and others you don't), restaurants, and constantly changing pop-up shops. It also has a roster of special events.

This store is tops for folk crafts and creative wares from around Tohoku, such as kokeshi dolls, Nambu ironware, and cherry-bark crafts, jewelry resembling red caviar, and even a unique blue lacquer they have developed. The store is about a 10-minute walk from Sendai Station. Follow the covered Clis Road and continue into the next covered arcade named Marble Road. Look for the kokeshi dolls on display out front on the left.

The venerable Shimokura Gakki group has its headquarters and largest presence in Ochanomizu, with five floors of new and used instruments of every type in its main building. There are also two separate secondhand guitar shops on either side of Meidai-dori street, as well as a buttoned-down classical stringed-instrument shop on the same block.

One Akihabara retailer that actually benefited from the bursting of Japan's economic bubble in the early 1990s is this outfit, which was once known as a used-PC and software chain with a heavy presence in Tokyo. Today, its multiple branches sell all sorts of new and used electronics, music, and mobile phones. Most outlets are open daily until 8.

Tabi are the traditional cloth boots with a cleft-toe shape requiring special socks, which are sold here among other cloth goods and clothing. This Kyoto-based brand creates graphic, cute, and funky patterns that are so of this era that you'd never know they based on traditional things. Across the street is its sister shop, which sells Westernized items made with the same fabrics.