Fukubukuro

Fukubukuro (Japanese: 福袋, pronounced [ɸɯ̥kɯbɯꜜkɯɾo]; "lucky bag") is a Japanese New Year custom in which merchants make grab bags filled with unknown random contents and sell them for a substantial discount, usually 50% or more off the list price of the items contained within.

Nowadays, some fukubukuro are pushed as a lavish New Year's event, where the contents are revealed beforehand, but this practice is criticized as just a renaming of selling things as sets.

The concept of fukubukuro was invented by Ginza Matsuya Department Store in the late Meiji era and has since spread to most retailers.

Depending on the business, merchants plan out what will go into these grab bags and what the selling price will be months in advance.

In major department stores, grab bags are usually themed to specific departments (e.g. a young adult section of the store would have fukubukuro with trendy merchandise, the shoe section would have several high priced shoes in the bag, etc.).