Yahoo Japan Offers Mobile Yahoo Shopping
I lived in Japan three years ago and am planning on moving back this summer. Besides all of the cultural comparisons, Anime, excellent rail system and population density, one thing that defines modern Japanese lifestyle is mobility. Japanese technology focuses on the concept of ease in mobility with focus building from the Sony Walkman of the 1980’s to the digital camera cellphone of the late 1990’s and Sony’s PSP of 2005. Although the use of broadband Internet in the household is growing rapidly, the main vortex of offering an Internet based service to the majority of Japanese is still going to be via the mobile handheld keitai (cellular phone). Oh, and one other thing the Japanese market loves to do – shop!
Yahoo Japan made the announcement yesterday that they have opened a version of Yahoo Shopping for cell phone Internet users. “Mobile Yahoo Shopping can be accessed from all three of Japan’s major wireless Internet services and brings together about 2,000 merchants and 2 million items for sale, according to estimates from Yahoo.” Like the Yahoo Japan Shopping portal for the PC, cell phone users can search products and retailers by category on their phones (now I can do my shopping on the train and in Snack Bars between karaoke songs).
Here’s an interesting factoid from InfoWorld : Online shopping from PCs is popular in Japan, but it has yet to take off in a big way from mobile devices. In a recent government survey, 89 percent of respondents said they shopped online using their PC, versus only 18 percent who shopped online with a cell phone.
