O-toriyose refers to direct marketing, especially e-commerce, which is enjoying a surge in popularity and rapid growth in Japan these days. The term is usually applied to purchases of gourmet food products from particular regions of the country, rather than to orders of things like furniture and clothing. While many products available by o-toriyose are sweets, other foodstuffs that are proving popular include seafood, fruit, soy sauce, miso, and rice.

The Japan Direct Marketing Association conducted a survey of businesses involved in the direct marketing of food, generally single products. It found that 22% of these firms expect their sales to grow by 10% or more in the future, indicating that this is a growth sector.

The typical o-toriyose customer is someone willing to pay premium prices for brand-type foods from famous restaurants that will please even the most demanding palate. Taste is everything, and the merchants of these foods take care to ensure that only the finest ingredients are used so as to entice customers to order their products again and again.

Many e-commerce websites have a special section dedicated to o-toriyose, and the competition among purveyors is intense. Many of the products they offer are from renowned shops or from regions famous for specific foods, such as fish and vegetable sets for stew, with anglerfish from Mito or cod from Kanazawa. Some of the most popular products are those that are difficult to obtain otherwise, such as momotaro grapes, which grow only in Okayama Prefecture, and rare types of potatoes, including red potatoes.

Among young women, an increasingly popular leisure activity is to invite friends over to partake in gourmet food that has arrived via o-toriyose. The boom in o-toriyose is illustrated by the routine of a popular comedian, who opines that o-toriyose is making marriage impossible for young women as they have to forgo dating and rush home to wait for deliveries.