Fukubukuro

Fukubukuro (福袋 lucky bag, mystery bag^?) is a Japanese New Year's Day custom where 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.

The term is formed from Japanese fuku (福, good fortune/luck) and fukuro (袋, bag).

The change of fukuro to bukuro is the phenomenon known as rendaku.

The fuku comes from the Japanese saying that "there is fortune in leftovers" (残り物には福がある).

Popular stores' fukubukuro usually are snapped up quickly by eager customers, with some stores having long lines snake around city blocks hours before the store opens on New Year's Day. Fukubukuro are an easy way for stores to unload excess and unwanted merchandise from the previous year, due to a Japanese superstition that one must not start the New Year with unwanted trash from the previous year and start clean. 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.

Fukubukuro was invented by Ginza Matsuya Department Store in late Meiji period and has since spread to most retailers. The custom has spread to other cultures; for example, in the Honolulu shopping center Ala Moana Center, several stores adopted in this tradition in 2004. Many Sanrio Stores in the United States often adopt this tradition as well.