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.
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