世論 What Japan Thinks

I remember a promise of a single Osaifu Keitai electronic wallet on one’s mobile phone replacing a physical walletful of point cards, and judging from this survey by iShare into usage of point services it is a desperately-needed service.

Demographics

Between th 1st and 3rd of March 2011 1,108 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.2% of the sample were male, 18.6% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, and 45.6% in their forties. All those questioned were pre-screened to select only those who had points saved up.

Having said that a unified electronic card service would be desirable from the consumer point of view, of course the corporate view is that the more people losing track of them the better. There are some moves towards unification, with T-Point and Ponta Point both setting up a network of companies, but what’s resulted is basically two parallel systems, with competitors in each industry choosing one side or another. Furthermore, it is only large chains that can afford to join, so small shops still stick with stamp cards or other isolated systems.

As for internet-based points, I have a good few but they’ve all got just a few hundred points each but with nothing available to change them for, so I have let more than a few expire. I also have about a quarter of a million air miles I should use one day before they expire too…

Research results

Q1: What sort of shops’ point services do you make use of? (Sample size=1,108, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Electrical superstore	80.8%	86.3%	73.4%
Supermarket, department store, convenience store	63.4%	57.9%	70.7%
Drug store	46.8%	33.9%	64.1%
CD, DVD rental store	34.1%	33.4%	35.0%
Restaurant, etc	28.0%	24.4%	32.7%
Clothes, accessories shop	17.7%	10.7%	27.0%
Beauty-related	15.8%	8.7%	25.3%
Interior, bric-a-brak	13.0%	7.4%	20.5%
Other	11.5%	11.2%	11.8%

Q2: How many physical point cards do you have? eg credit card, stamp card, T-Point card, etc. Include those you keep at home, not just those you usually carry. (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
One or two	18.8%	24.0%	11.8%
Three or four	19.3%	23.0%	14.3%
Five or six	19.7%	19.6%	19.8%
Seven or eight	10.3%	10.7%	9.7%
Nine or ten	11.9%	8.7%	16.2%
Eleven to fifteen	6.7%	5.8%	7.8%
Sixteen to twenty	4.6%	2.7%	7.2%
Twenty-one to twenty-five	1.4%	0.5%	2.7%
Twenty-six to thirty	1.3%	0.6%	2.1%
Thirty-one or more	2.8%	1.4%	4.6%
None at all	3.2%	3.0%	3.6%

Q3: Do you use internet-based point services? eg internet credit card points, shopping site points, gaming, SNS-based points, etc (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Yes (to SQ)	78.7%	77.4%	80.4%
No	21.3%	22.6%	19.6%

Q3SQ: What kinds of internet-based point services do you use? (Sample size=872, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=491	Female N=381
Internet shopping site	94.7%	93.9%	95.8%
Point site	26.3%	24.8%	28.1%
Game, SNS	7.3%	6.7%	8.1%
Blog	1.5%	1.0%	2.1%
Other	1.1%	1.4%	0.8%

Point sites include places that give you points for watching advertisements.

Q4: Do you use a mobile-phone based electronic wallet (Osaifu Keitai)? (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Yes (to SQ)	26.5%	31.5%	19.8%
No	73.5%	68.5%	80.2%

Q4SQ: When using an electronic wallet (Osaifu Keitai), are you aware of being awarded points? (Sample size=172)

	All	Male N=200	Female N=94
Yes	58.5%	60.5%	54.3%
No	41.5%	39.5%	45.7%

Q5: Do you have points you are unsure of how to manage? (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Yes, lots	25.6%	27.0%	23.8%
Yes, a few	56.9%	55.4%	58.9%
No	17.5%	17.7%	17.3%

Some of the reasons for being unsure of how to manage them were not knowing the rate at which points could be exchanged for cash, not knowing what points can be exchanged for, not knowing how to exchange points, not knowning how many points were saved, and not knowing how long they were valid for.

Q6: Do you have points you are collecting without having decided how you are going to use them? (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Yes, lots	30.5%	31.9%	28.7%
Yes, a few	52.2%	52.1%	52.3%
No	17.3%	16.1%	19.0%

Q7: Have you ever felt points are more bother than they are worth? (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Yes, often (to SQ)	39.9%	41.8%	37.3%
Yes, sometimes (to SQ)	46.6%	42.7%	51.7%
No	13.5%	15.5%	11.0%

Q7SQ: When have you felt points are more bother than they are worth? (Sample size=958, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=536	Female N=422
When my wallet is bulging with point cards	65.8%	67.0%	64.2%
When I lose track of, forget expiry dates	61.9%	64.2%	59.0%
When I forget to take the card with me when I have an opportunity to use it	58.6%	56.3%	61.4%
When points expire without me using them	57.2%	53.5%	61.8%
When I have to hunt for the card when shopping	56.1%	51.9%	61.4%
When I have trouble finding out how many points I have saved up	39.6%	40.9%	37.9%
When there’s nothing I want to change my points for	37.7%	37.1%	38.4%
When I’ve got less points saved than I thought I had	32.8%	32.3%	33.4%
When I don’t know an effective way to manage my points	30.7%	33.4%	27.3%
When I get asked about points I’m not interested in	25.9%	22.4%	30.3%
When there’s points I want to save but there’s few places where I can	23.0%	25.2%	20.1%
When I don’t know at which locations what points I can save	23.0%	25.2%	20.1%
When I don’t know how to use points	19.3%	19.8%	18.7%
When there’s a number of different point systems I can use, but I’m confused as to which to use	17.2%	20.0%	13.7%
Other	1.9%	1.9%	1.9%

Q8: Have you ever felt lost trying to choose the most appropriate from a flood of point systems? (Sample size=1,108)

	All	Male N=634	Female N=474
Yes, often	30.1%	33.1%	26.2%
Yes, sometimes	48.1%	45.9%	51.1%
No	21.8%	21.0%	22.8%