How key moments in Japan’s World Cup opener showed up in online shopping traffic

We love data and we love football, so it’s only natural we’d look at how the big moments from Japan’s World Cup opener against Colombia on June 19 affected user behavior on Rakuten’s Ichiba marketplace.

The above chart, from Rakuten’s Technology Division in Tokyo, shows fluctuations in site traffic on Rakuten Ichiba during the widely-viewed evening match, which at its peak saw more than 55% of television watchers in Japan’s Kanto region (which includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures) tune into the action.

The takeaway: it’s hard to shop while you’re jumping for joy in the living room or local pub (or covering your eyes with both hands, in the case of Columbia’s game-tying goal in the first half).

We’re guessing that the spike in traffic after the game was from all the World Cup watchers searching for Yuya Osako jerseys. Go Japan!