RanKing RanQueen

If you have trouble making shopping decisions, let statistics help you

Like any good Asian country, if not even more so than others, Japan is obsessed with statistics. And each morning the news is littered with new “firsts”. About a decade ago, the novelty shop RanKing RanQeen popped up in Shibuya. An obvious pun on “ranking”, RanKing RanQueen researched, gathered and sold only the most popular products for every daily need, sorting them by popularity. Unsurprisingly, it was a hit.

Feeling a bit rebellious today? Maybe you’ll want to go with the second most popular product. Everything and anything at RanKing RanQueen is categorized by type and popularity, though most of the products at the store are aimed toward the busy working woman. Each display comes with a short informative description not unlike retail chains in the West so further facilitate purchases.

Everything is ranked at the shop.

It’s easy to blame Japan’s love for rankings or conformist society for the shop’s popularity but there is certainly something comforting, and more importantly convenient with a shop like RanKing RanQueen. And Japan is all about convenience. Having all this data present takes away some of the pressure in making a purchase. It’s something that has been proven to work especially well with online shopping, so implementing it physically feels only natural.

The distance RanKing RanQueen goes to rank stuff is amusing though. The most popular bottled water? Crystal Geyser (though Fiji Water is a close second). RanKing RanQueen (Japanese).