29 Best Places to Go Shopping in Tokyo

Aoyama is one of Tokyo’s premier upmarket areas with many top international designer brands calling this neighbourhood home. A walk down Omotesando Street will enthral those who are interested in architecture and fashion. The flagship store for Rei Kawakubo’s Commes des Garçons brand is extraordinary, with its many small blue glass hubs. Issey Miyake, Gucci, Michael Kors and Costume National also have big stores on Omotesando Street in Aoyama.

One of the most iconic buildings in Tokyo, the Prada Building was designed by Pritzker prize-winning Swiss architectural team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. The exterior polygraph is covered in unique bubbly windows that together resemble a shiny quilted blanket. Its chic, black-and-white interior houses the top brand’s full collection of men’s and women’s apparel and accessories. You might even find limited edition items that are largely unavailable in other Prada boutiques.

The Spiral Building is a complex of cultural facilities established by Wacoal aimed at bringing together life and art. The Spiral Market on the 2nd floor presents simple, high-quality home furnishings based on an ‘eternal design’ principle. The store has 6 self-explanatory zones – lounging, eating, healing, working, wearing and wrapping. The market also regularly hosts the ‘Spiral Market Selection’ which displays clay, glass and fabric artefacts made by hand-picked, up and coming designers.

Oriental Bazaar is a great place to pick up some souvenirs for those back home. Located on Omotesando street close to Harajuku, you’ll find 3 floors of typical Japanese items here, including new and antique kimonos, hand fans, stationery, homeware and cheap keyrings – great gifts for distant cousins. Although a little touristy at certain times of year, the bazaar remains very popular for Japanese shoppers. The shop is walking distance from Omotesando Station and Meiji-Jingumae Station.

During the war, Ameyoko was the place to get black market American goods such as liquor, chocolate, tobacco. it has long since traded as a black market, but is now Tokyo’s largest open-air bazaar. Wth more than 500 stores selling everything from foreign brand name clothes to sporting and electrical goods to fruits and vegetables, and almost always at a discounted price, Ameyoko street market buzzes with a distinctly Asian market vibe and is a nice counter-point to the clean modern parts of the city.

Mandarake Shibuya is a second-hand store popular with Tokyo’s youth. This cavernous store offers a wide variety of retro manga, anime mobile phones, toys, stereos, books, and more. The store has a cosplay stage and karaoke box in keeping with the overall otaku theme of the store. You never really know what you’re going to find in Mandarake and that’s half of the fun.

As one of the tallest buildings in the entire city, Tokyo Midtown is easy to spot. Launched as part of a huge redevelopment project, it’s home to 130 upmarket shops, offices, museums and the Ritz Carlton Tokyo Hotel on the top floors. Most of the shopping is located in the Galleria section, a 4-storey arcade, that offers high-end, spacious shopping. Along with plenty of fashion boutiques from Japan’s most esteemed designers, you’ll find some incredible homeware shops to pick up some stand out art pieces for your home.

The Apple Store Ginza was the first Apple store to be opened outside of the US and it's amazing. With 7 floors of Apple’s most innovative technology to explore, you could spend an entire afternoon in here, and there's a theatre which screens regular tutorials on Apple products. You can walk to the Apple Store from Ginza Station. 

Aimed predominately at the female market the Marui Jam department store has an extensive collection of clothes, accessories, shoes and bags. Sporting goods, yoga products and swimsuits are to be found here. There is also a famous hair and nail salon located on the top floor. Marui Jam is just behind Shibuya 109 shopping mall and is walking distance from the subway. 

Roppongi Hills is a simply massive development that contains a shopping mall hosting many top Japanese and international brands. There are also many smaller boutiques, cafes, restaurants and variety shops located within this upmarket labyrinth. If you fancy a change of pace from shopping, Roppongi Hills also houses an excellent cinema complex and the Mori Art Museum.

Hakuhinkan toy store is a wonderland of toys, teddies, and creativity. Just a short walk from Ginza toward Shimbashi, this 8-storey megastore is split into different sections. There’s a fun park, a toy museum and each floor has a theme. You can skip from stuffed toys to computer games to character and action figures. A great place to browse or just embrace the inner child. You'll find this children's fantasy land between Shimbashi and Ginza stations.

If you are looking for a more valuable keepsake from your trip to Japan, the Kawano Gallery is the place to buy antique Japanese fabrics, hand-painted and embroidered kimono, haori and obi. The store also has a variety of the Japanese cloth room-dividers called noren also exquisitely hand-made. Kwano Gallery have English signs explaining many of the products, which is very helpful and quite rare in Japan. 

This is the Tokyo headquarters for wholesale religious and funeral goods. The type of items being produced in the Inaricho district include Shinto household shrines, Buddha images, paper lanterns, and every sacred item required for home-worhsip. All of these items are available here in a range of models. To find this fascinating neighbourhood, head south-west of Ueno station.

This is an enormous 7-storey toy shop specialising in everything anime, manga or Disney. Manga ‘comic pictures’ are hugely popular in Japan. The content is as diverse as politics to baseball, martial arts to romance, and people of all ages enjoy reading comics. Searching for a vintage publication? Or some Mickey Mouse plush toys? This toy mecca is worth a visit just for the sheer scope of it.

Cospa Gee Store stocks a range of fantasy costumes and fancy dress outfits. Japanese teens love to dress up in costumes and whole stores are devoted to kos-pu-re or costume play. This store has a great variety of costumes from the Lolita look to more risqué outfits.

Don Quijote Shinjuku is one of those enthralling all-night stores that stocks just about everything you never thought you would want. Nicknamed "Donki" by Japanese, this discount store is laden with cheap, gimmicky and irresistible items, from gifts and souvenirs, to travel goods and car supplies. This iconic store is open 24 hours a day and serves cheap food, making a popular spot to refuel after a few beers in the bars of Shinjuku.

Located at the Sensoji Temple, Kuroda is a craft store that has been in business since 1856. You can find beautiful Japanese washi – delicate hand-made paper sheets – which is this shop’s speciality. Traditional woodblock prints onto paper is one of Japan’s most admired forms of artistry, and the staff at Kuroda are considered experts. Traditionally, themes included beautiful women, kabuki actors, landscapes and the supernatural, but nowadays more modern imagery is creating using the ancient methods. Kurodaya also stocks a wide range of traditional masks, clay figurines, kites and calligraphy equipment.

There are so many tiny shops and boutiques lining Takeshita Street, to single any out is pointless. Clothing, shoes and accessories, jewellery, character goods, pop idol stores, the street has basically everything a teen could want. During the week is the best time to go if you actually want to buy anything otherwise the weekends, particularly Sundays, are the best people-watching times.

Harajuku Kiddy Land is the flagship store of this toy brand and a wonderful experience for the young at heart. Across 6 storeys, the beautifully decorated store presents colourful interactive displays and a huge number of toys, games and figures of all varieties, plus all the kitsch character items – think Hello Kitty – that are so popular with children around the world. Kiddy Land is next to Meiji-Jingumae Station on the Chiyoda Line.

Kappabashi-dori is known mainly for producing the miniature foods that are present outside most Japanese restaurants to tempt potential diners. These miniatures can be quite exquisite and are, in general, much pricier than the real foods they depict. The street also contains shops selling all kinds of kitchen appliances and utensils. A map can be found at the Asakusa tourist information centre.

An amazing counterpoint to the cutting-edge fashion on Harajuku streets, Togo Shrine hosts the Antiques Market on the first, fourth and fifth Sunday of every month. From 5am to 3pm, the quiet compound of the historical shrine is the perfect setting for this grand-daddy of all flea markets offering an enthralling array of Japanese antique furniture, crafts and memorabilia.

For a real taste of otaku style, head to this capsule toy (gachapon) haven in Akihabara. With more than 400 capsule toy machines you could win anything from Godzilla, to Ultraman or Dragon Ball Z. You should visit Akihabara Gachapon Kaikan as much for the experience as purchasding a capsule toy. Punk staff and blaring rock music seems to go down well with the customers.

With stores all over the country, Yodobashi is one of the Japan’s largest electronics chains and the Akihabara store is the biggest in the country, possibly one of the world’s largest electronics stores. Across 9 floors and 23,000 square metres, you’ll find every kind of electronics item you could think of – from computers to digital cameras, music accessories, TVs, to video games and fun gadgets. It doesn’t end there though, as this shop also stocks toys, bicycles and anime related items.

Bic Camera Shibuya Hachikoguchi consists of 7 floors of discounted digital cameras, videos, computers and other home appliances. You can wander around and see gadgets you never even knew you needed. This national chain of electronics stores often include such diverse items as toys and jewellery in addition to the dizzying array of electronics. Bic Camera Shibuya Hachikoguchi is connected to the subway station, making it convenient in any weather. 

One of the older department stores in Ginza, Matsuya was built in 1925. With a golf school and a pet shop on the top floor, Matsuya is not your ordinary department store. There’s lots to browse and buy and a gallery on the seventh floor which exhibits the best in contemporary and classic wares, selected by an esteemed panel of judges from the Japan Design Committee.