世論 What Japan Thinks

Most of the big chains of convenience stores have two kiosk-like machines in many of their stores; an ATM machine, and a general-purpose terminal for conducting various transactions. This recent survey from goo Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at how people use convenience stores, with the report focusing on the use of these service kiosks.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of August 2008 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 16.2% were in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 22.4% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, and 26.8% aged fifty or older.

Note that many Japanese net shopping sites, from the tiny stores at Rakuten all the way up to Amazon, allow payment at convenience stores. My wife has a Ticket Pia card, and even when booking through their own official ticket site she can get the option to pick up the tickets from a Family Mart store for no fee as an alternative to about 600 yen fee for registered post. When she picks up the tickets she can opt to pay by cash, but by inserting the card she gets priority seat choice, as they do not assign the seat when booking online (or by the phone), but instead when you pay. If you fail to turn up at the machine within three days you lose your booking. It does seem like a horribly complex and roundabout way of buying things and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of agreement between Ticket Pia and Family Mart whereby Family Mart pay Ticket Pia for sending a customer through their doors.

Research results

From the original sample there were just six people who had never used a convenience store. The remaining 1,073 people were asked the following questions.

Q1: Have you ever used a kiosk terminal in a convenience store? (Sample size=1,073)

Yes (to SQs)	41.0%
No	59.0%

Q1SQ1: Which kind of kiosk do you use the most? (Sample size=440)

Bank ATM	40.2%
Loppi (Lawsons)	29.8%
FamiPort (Family Mart)	18.6%
Multicopy Machine (Seven-Eleven)	11.4%
appoint’s (am/pm)	0.0%
Other	0.0%

When asked which ones they had used, the most frequent answer was Loppi, with 72.5% having used one, then 63.0% having used an ATM. In addition, 27 people, or 6.1%, had only used ATMs, so they were excluded from answering the next question.

Q1SQ2: Excluding ATMs, which of the following services have you used on kiosks? (Sample size=413, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Other (not cinema, concert) ticket purchase	161	39.0%
Net shopping, mail order payment	143	34.6%
Concert ticket purchase	136	32.9%
Cinema ticket purchase	83	20.1%
Product reservation, purchase	78	18.9%
Electronic money purchase	76	18.4%
Digital camera photo print	65	15.7%
Point award, exchange	54	13.1%
Internet printing	18	4.4%
Gift card purchase	18	4.4%
Other	30	7.3%

Although “other” ticket purchases was the top answer, what exactly was “other” is not discussed. It will be at least attraction tickets, from theme parks to museums via sports, I think.