Keycafe and Lawson Help Japanese Communities Engage the Sharing Economy

日本語

Keycafe is expanding its property access management services across Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Naha, with plans to continue adding locations in cities throughout Japan. Keycafe’s partnership with Lawson ensures that we can continue to provide more locations that allow for our users to exchange keys 24/7 at their favourite neighbourhood store.

Tokyo is the capital and largest city within Japan, with the Greater Tokyo Area ranked as the most populous metropolitan area in the world in 2018. Although Tokyo is often referred to and considered a city, it is officially known and governed as a “metropolitan prefecture”. This makes Tokyo a unique amalgamation of 26 cities, 23 special wards, five towns, and eight villages, for a total of 62 municipalities. With so many municipalities, just Tokyo Metropolis has a population of over 13.8 million, with the population of the Greater Tokyo Area over 38 million people.

In 2016, the country of Japan was evaluated to have a sharing economy worth of over $4.5 billion and Nature Innovation Group, that has created an umbrella-sharing service called iKasa in an effort to reduce umbrella waste, has started to find success and is also featured in select Lawson stores. CrowdWorks offers a crowdsourcing service that allows users to post and find work opportunities, with an innovative model that re-entrusts work to registered members. SpaceMarket is another Japanese company that seeks to repurpose and share unused spaces. Along with companies from Tokyo and other big cities, smaller and more rural cities have also started to embrace the growing sharing economy, with companies like Tabica promoting the sharing of traditional Japanese culture with tourists.

Airbnb has had early success in Japan, which is having a surge in foreign tourists.  According to the government, inbound tourism to Japan has skyrocketed from eight million to 31 million tourists in over a decade, and the government is targeting over 40m in 2020 with the Tokyo Olympics. Airbnb has been hampered by local regulations introduced in 2018 but has been steadily recovering it’s listings over the past year.

Property access is a missing link for those using home sharing services like Airbnb or Booking.com in Tokyo and the rest of Japan. The partnership between Keycafe and Lawson allows communities throughout Tokyo to have access to the sharing economy. Keycafe has integrated photo ID verification with their key exchange service allowing hosts to easily comply with local laws requiring the collection and retention of passports of all guests for 3 years.

Keycafe and Lawson have also partnered with local house cleaning service Casy to have customers drop off keys at nearby Keycafe locations. Using Keycafe’s sophisticated API, Casy customers can drop off keys at a Keycafe Smartbox without registering with Keycafe. Another example of Keycafe helping Lawson becoming the hub for local services.

Lawson stores have continuously created value for customers and communities, from fresh food to providing free wifi and access to indoor ATMs. With locations open 24 hours a day, Lawson is a perfect partner for Keycafe, with safe environments where Keycafe users can exchange keys while having access to snacks and service provided by Lawson.

Visit our locations page to find a SmartBox in Japan near you. You’ll also be able to see our locations in other Japanese cities.

A selection of Tokyo’s SmartBox locations:

If you live in Tokyo or elsewhere in Japan and don’t have access to a SmartBox near you, we want to know. Please visit our locations page and submit your address at the bottom so we can know where to expand next.