世論 What Japan Thinks

Over one week at the start of March, infoPLANT conducted a survey by means of a public questionnaire available throughNTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system on the subject of online shopping habits. Note that since this is a self-selecting survey, attracting perhaps heavy mobile phone users, there might be some bias towards higher levels of shopping than in the average phone-owning population.

Demographics

6,398 people, 66.1% of them female, successfully completed the survey. 3.1% were in their teens, 33.0% in their twenties, 43.1% in their thirties, 17.7% in their forties, and 3.2% aged fifty or older.

I personally have never bought anything through a mobile phone web site as I restrict all my purchasing activity to a full-size computer, and I’m really surprised to see clothes doing so well, but in part that might be due to people choosing clothes through a paper catalogue then completing the order by mobile phone.

Research results

Q1: About how often do you visit online shopping sites with your mobile phone? (Sample size=6,398)

	All	Male N=2,172	Female N=4,226
Almost every day	15.1%	12.3%	16.5%
Four or five days a week	6.2%	5.1%	6.7%
Two or three days a week	14.8%	12.5%	16.0%
About one day a week	13.5%	13.1%	13.7%
Two or three days a month	12.6%	10.7%	13.6%
About one day a month	8.3%	8.9%	8.0%
One day every two or three months	5.1%	4.5%	5.4%
Less than that	7.9%	10.4%	6.6%
Don’t visit online shopping sites	16.6%	22.6%	13.5%

In summary, over two in five men and over half of the women visit shopping sites at least once per week. Excluding the over 50 age group, this regularity increased by age for both sexes. Indeed, over 23% of those over 40 visited such shopping sites daily.

Q2: Have you ever bought anything from an online shopping sites through your mobile phone? (Sample size=5,339)

	All	Male N=1,682	Female N=3,657
Yes, and want to buy again (to Q3A)	69.9%	62.4%	73.3%
Yes, but don’t want to buy again (to Q3A)	4.8%	4.3%	5.1%
No, but want to buy (to Q3B)	17.9%	23.1%	15.5%
No, and don’t want to buy	7.4%	10.2%	6.1%

Q3A: What did you buy from an online shopping sites through your mobile phone? (Sample size=3,989, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,682	Female N=3,657
Clothes, fashion items	53.2%	36.9%	59.5%
Cosmetics	37.0%	9.1%	47.9%
CD, DVD, video	34.6%	46.0%	30.1%
Food, drink	34.6%	31.1%	36.0%
Books, magazines	30.6%	36.8%	28.2%
Movie, concert, etc tickets	16.8%	15.6%	17.3%
Travel tickets, hotel rooms, etc	15.3%	15.8%	15.1%
Game software	10.0%	15.3%	7.9%
Other	30.0%	38.2%	26.8%

Q3B: What did you buy from an online shopping sites through your mobile phone (or what would you like to buy)? (Sample size=1,164, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=475	Female N=689
CD, DVD, video	37.2%	49.5%	28.7%
Movie, concert, etc tickets	36.8%	33.7%	38.9%
Travel tickets, hotel rooms, etc	35.4%	32.6%	37.3%
Clothes, fashion items	32.9%	22.9%	39.8%
Books, magazines	32.7%	37.3%	29.6%
Food, drink	23.0%	21.1%	24.4%
Cosmetics	18.7%	3.2%	29.5%
Game software	14.6%	23.2%	8.7%
Other	18.6%	23.4%	15.2%

Q4: In the last year, about how much have you spend on online shopping sites through your mobile phone? (Sample size=3,989)

	All	Male N=1,682	Female N=3,657
Up to 3,000 yen	7.3%	7.1%	7.3%
Up to 5,000 yen	11.2%	12.2%	10.8%
Up to 10,000 yen	20.9%	22.7%	20.2%
Up to 20,000 yen	19.6%	18.4%	20.1%
Up to 30,000 yen	11.7%	10.0%	12.3%
Up to 40,000 yen	4.2%	3.8%	4.4%
Up to 50,000 yen	5.7%	4.7%	6.1%
Over 50,000 yen	13.4%	15.2%	12.7%
Didn’t buy anything in last year	6.0%	5.9%	6.0%