Many Japanese collect points, fed up with them
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…
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