Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
NTT Communications Corp has developed a system for integrating the reward cards of more than 100 retailers into a single mobile phone. The system, named Gyazapo, frees users from carrying multiple reward cards and allows them to receive membership services such as rewards and discounts at retailers by simply waving their phones, equipped with contactless integrated circuit chips, over special terminals.
NTT Communications plans to start feasibility tests on the system in February, it said.
© JCN
6 Comments
Login to comment
Himajin
Cool! I have so many cards I use a meshi-ire to organize them all, this sounds convenient!
gogogo
Damn this is a good idea I to have so many darn points cards and memberships
sageb1
Halfway to Neuromancy NTT is!
sk4ek
Well there are two approaches to this problem, both of which have been tried before: either bring the various point card systems together on a unified platform (like NTT Comm is proposing), or come up with a point card system and then try to get as many retailers/businesses as possible to sign on as you can (something like what Tsutaya is trying to do with its T-Points card). The big problem is that the so many of those point cards filling our wallets come from small, sometimes even neighborhood shops--your dry cleaner, the bento place on the corner, your favorite bakery, Dotour, etc.--and no one has really figured out an economical and effective way to draw in these small chains and individual businesses that works for the businesses and the consumer. The sales effort alone--not to mention the system costs--make it a losing proposition.
Still, maybe NTT Comm's efforts will be the start...
sk4ek
Alright, Dotour isn't exactly a small neighborhood business... but you get the idea.
gonemad
I like the many individual point cards from mom's and pop's shops in Japan, because they can be used anonymously and they don't try to track what you have bought. They just work as a reward that you come again, which is fair. All the common point card formats, including this latest approach from NTT, have a different business model. Their purpose is to collect and sell the information about everybodys shopping behaviour. I value my privacy, so, no thanks, NTT.