LifeStyle Index - Instant Access to Chinese and Japanese Consumer Data

Though the Asian market is indeed one of the fastest growing markets in the world, it seems that only few researchers know what is actually going on in this unique region in terms of market insight. Therefore, it is always nice and helpful to have Asian partners who can provide you with vast local insight and market know-how. However, when you prepare a proposal and need those insights right away, it is often difficult to work with the partners on the other side of the globe mostly due to the difference in time zones, among other factors.


To solve this issue, Research Panel Asia (RPA) has released “LifeStyle Index,” an ASP service which in no time, allows its users to access, pull out, and analyze the data of consumers in Japan and China – the top two Asian markets. It enables users to have 24/7 data access on the consuming attitude, preference, and purchase behavior of the Japanese and Chinese consumers. In addition, it also lets its users to conduct a comparative research between these two countries. It is truly a helpful service, especially if you have projects in the Asian market.


LifeStyle Index, with its broad range of perspectives and useful functions, provides the research results on the lifestyle of Chinese and Japanese consumers. It is based on the results of RPA’s original surveys which were run using its proprietary panels. It contains the data of Chinese consumers located in the main cities (Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou) with over 180 attributes, as well as newly released Japanese date with over 240 attributes. Additionally, LifeStyle Index allows users to create segments of consumers based on their target specifications, and make a comparison between these multiple segments. Simply put, it gives users a quick insight and valid market data to support your proposal in no time.


Currently, RPA is offering a 30-days free trial plan of the LifeStyle Index. Please sign up here to access your online consumer database of the fastest growing market.



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Watch out with the details - Running online research in Asia : 3

When it comes to respondent attitudes or sensitivity towards the survey structure, it's difficult to say what the difference is in between the countries. However from the actual project management perspective, recently we've seen some examples that may need some consideration when running projects in Asia.


- Order of the survey questions.

Specifically in projects run by clients in NA and Europe, we sometimes see the general profiling questions mixed up with the main questions. We do get the point that this will lead to gathering somewhat the "real" data, but from our experience this has actually led to respondents' complaints and confusion asking if it's an error, not that it will encourage severe drop outs but to leave them with questions and suspicion towards international surveys.


- Surveys that require downloading of files.

Maybe it's a needless to say point for some researchers, but considering the sensitivity towards online secruity of Asian respondents, this is something clients do need to be aware. Response rate assumption obviously needs to be confirmed with the panel supplier, and to prevent as much as possible for this to lower, we would need to assure no harm for the respondents in a transparent manner.


This is how detail-oriented panelists can be, and knowing it or not will change the results of projects, in both long & short term perspective.

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We are your Around-the-Clock Partner!

Without a doubt, Asia is one of the fastest growing regions in the world.
But because of the time difference, working with Asian partners can be sometimes troublesome. Imagine that you send an email to your partner in Japan at 10am EST, but chances are very low that they get back to you immediately because it's 12 o'clock midnight there. We are very aware that for almost all global companies, time difference is one of their biggest concerns.


Research Panel Asia (RPA) has taken this issue seriously and we are now earnestly working on solving this. April 2010, RPA has established an operation center in Manila, Philippines to support our clients around the clock. Currently, our pricing team operates 24 hours on weekdays. We are now aiming to expand our project management coverage as well. The first step is to officially cover all seven days a week by mid 2011.


To give a quick overview about RPA's operation center, it is based in Ortigas, the second largest business district in Manila, and is currently under operation with 12 operators. Having English as their second language, they are able to understand easily the clients' requests and inquiries and so are able to respond quickly and coherently. For us, client-satisfaction is the top priority hence we work very hard to offer the service more than expected for the clients. Being results-driven and having many fresh ideas, RPA's operation center continuously seeks better ways to improve the daily operation to meet our clients' needs.

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Timing Matters!! ---Running online research in Asia : 2

The holiday season is here and year 2010 is coming to an end. In Western countries, New Year is one of the biggest holiday seasons and is usually the time for family reunions. Likewise, numerous big events which are usually accompanied by many fireworks and illuminations are held in major cities around the world. Because of this, many people go back to their hometown to celebrate the New Year with their family. However, this is not the case in some Asian countries.

In countries like China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea, people do celebrate Solar New Year (January 1st), but Lunar New Year is given more importance. Lunar New Year is based on the ancient lunisolar calendar and each country celebrates the day in its own unique way.

In China, New Year is also known as zheng yue; the New Year Festival begins on the first
day of the first month and ends with a traditional Lantern Festival. The whole New Year Festival lasts 15 days and during this period, people usually return home for the family reunion. In celebration of the traditional holidays, people eat a lot of homemade food, exchange gifts with relatives, and set off firecrackers.

Korean New Year, commonly known as Seollal, is generally the same day as the Chinese New Year. Traditionally, people return home for the annual family reunion. Most of them travel home by car hence a very heavy traffic on highways is one of the most typical scenarios during this period. People in Korea commemorate this holiday by eating traditional foods, visiting family graves, and playing games.

With the recent rapid growth of the economy, travelling abroad during Lunar New Year is becoming more common in Asian countries. But despite this, the majority of people still return to their hometowns to visit and celebrate with their family and relatives.

During the Lunar New Year, most people do not spend time using the Internet and answering online surveys as much as they usually do. And the survey participation rate is quite low during this period. This might be a major factor that marketing research companies tend to overlook. Therefore, if you are thinking of running studies in Asia, we highly recommend avoiding fieldwork during this period.

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