世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at the online shopping habits of women.

Demographics

On the 5th of April 2010 300 female members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 12.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 38.0% in their thirties, 19.7% in their forties, 23.0% in their fifties, and 7.0% in their sixties.

As usual, my favourite method, PayPal, doesn’t get a mention, although I suppose Yahoo! Wallet is the closest one gets.
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent survey from iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into online shopping failures by women found few actually complained to the shop about their problems.

Demographics

On the 23rd of March 2010 300 female members of the iBridge monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.3% were in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 26.7% in their forties, 9.3% in their fifties, and 5.7% in their sixties.

Even though she will often complain about other things, the few times my wife has had problems with online ordering, in particular with clothes, she hasn’t bothered to do anything as she says it’s too much hassle and cost to return the items, despite her usual shop offering no questions asked refunds of unworn clothes.
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into online shopping found that Rakuten was the top online shop, used by over two-thirds of the online shoppers in this survey.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 5th of March 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 1.3% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I know I’ve previously slagged off Rakuten as a bunch of spammers and toolbar pushers, but they do actually have good shops there, and at least it’s just my wife who has to deal with the spam! Our latest purchase was a lucky bag of organic vegetables for 777 yen delivered straight to the door. That’s about half the price that it might have been at a supermarket.
Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you coming to this thread with a dirty mind, please review the lack of a possessive apostrophe for “girls” and realise that this is merely a survey from iShare looking at purchasing underwear as gifts for not just Japanese women, but men too.

Demographics

Between the 30th of September and 5th of October 2009 562 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 34.5% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, and 32.2% in their forties.

I’ve peeked at Japanese knickers, once before, as it were.

My wife buys all my boxers, usually Hello Kitty and friends. Last time I had a health check at the office that required stripping down I realised I’d decided to wear my bright orange Snoopy Halloween ones that day!
Read the rest of this entry »

MyVoice recently conducted a survey into online shopping usage, the sixth time they have looked at this topic. The results of this survey are very relevant to anyone trying to sell stuff in the Japanese market.

Demographics

Over the first five days of April 2009 15,665 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% int heir teens, 15% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

The numbers below are much higher than I would have expected! It’s a surprise to me that books are the top item bought – there’s very little discounting on Amazon Japan and there’s no shortage of physical book stores so I feel the online benefit is marginal in Japan, but obviously my gut feeling is wrong.

In Q2SQ4, I’m surprised they didn’t have a specific answer for a text link through a blog, as when I buy stuff it’s usually after a search for reviews then an affiliate click-through from a blog.
Read the rest of this entry »

This survey from MyVoice, their second look at department stores, had a surprising to me set of results, with Japanese much less frequent users of these stores than I might have imagined.

Demographics

Over the first five days of March 2009 15,606 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

I recommend to every visitor to Japan that they go to department stores to at least just look; the basement floor is usually full of lots of speciality food stores that will be more than happy to hand out free samples at off-peak times. The best one I know for this is Hanshin Umeda – there’s always lots of free mouthfuls of wine, sake, fruit vinegar and tea to be had.

I quite often use these food areas, in particular RF1, which although a little on the expensive side has a wonderful range of salads. My favourites are their baked veggies – lots of potato, asparagus and carrot – and their Hokkaido Danshaku potato croquette, which are wonderfully soft and creamy.
Read the rest of this entry »

The title sounds perhaps as if Sunday has come a day early to the blog, but that was the best title I could think of for this recent survey by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into online shopping failures.

Demographics

On the 30th of March 2009 300 female members of the iBridge online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 20.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 41.0% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 1.3% in their sixties.

The find of failure this survey was interested in was goods not quite matching the description on the page or accidentally buying the wrong thing, etc, not technical failures or fraud. Don’t ask me why almost one in five of the sample aren’t sure whether or not they failed!
Read the rest of this entry »

Although I was at a loss to explain why a previous survey was young women only, it is quite obvious why this survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, on online shopping payment methods focused on the fairer sex.

Demographics

On the 16th of March 2009 300 female members of the iBridge research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 41.7% in their thirties, 25.7% in their forties, 9.0% in their fifties, and 2.3% in their sixties.

One of the more popular payment methods in the west is surely PayPal, so from my point of view the omission is glaring. Yahoo! Wallet is available in the USA also, and it seems to be mostly a proxy for your own credit card, so your credit card information is held only by Yahoo!, not the merchants and shops that support Yahoo! Wallet, so it should be more secure.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve not actually been into a clothes shop to get stuff for myself for a couple of years, although the last time I did go it was to a Uniqlo, the shop that comes out way on top in this recent survey from MyVoice into casual wear shops.

Demographics

Over the first five days of January 2009 13,923 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 13% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 31% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I usually buy casual wear at Passport, as they have a nice (read “cheap”) line of hannari tofu clothes. Otherwise I leave the casual shopping up to the wife, who uses mail order on the whole.
Read the rest of this entry »

In Japan too the New Year brings sales, so this survey from the curiously-named RealWorld RealResearch and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at New Year digital home electrics purchases.

Demographics

On the 4th of January 2009 1,201 members of the RealWorld RealResearch monitor panel completed presumably a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.1% of the sample were male, 8.7% in their teens, 7.4% in their twenties, 20.8% in their thirties, 12.8% in their forties, 27.6% in their fifties, and 22.6% aged sixty or older. (That’s a rather unusual age distribution!)

I didn’t buy any digital electronics, although I did get a room humidifier and some blank DVDs. Most of the items I need to buy are very digital on the inside but boring old white goods on the outside, such as a rice cooker as our current one’s non-stick is coming unstuck, and no doubt very soon I’ll also need a new washing machine as it’s on its last legs.
Read the rest of this entry »