Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. (hereafter Toppan Printing; head office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; President & CEO: Naoki Adachi) has conducted a survey on purchasing of high price items and compiled a research report.

The survey focused on the purchasing of expensive products, looking at 24 items in 8 categories, such as food and everyday items, and targeted 20,000 men and women from all over Japan. The survey looked at the type of people that buy expensive products and their purchasing styles.

The results of the survey showed the special characteristics of people that buy high price products according to their own unique decision making criteria. This included the purchase of skin lotions costing over 10,000 yen by people who are not considered to be within wealthy groups. To describe these people with variable consumer habits that buy expensive items is specific product categories, Toppan Printing has coined the word "meriha-rich", combing the Japanese word "merihari" which means "varied" or "jagged" with the English word "rich". The company has profiled consumers for each product and clarified the type of people who make these purchases and their lifestyles.

Overview of the survey
"Survey on purchasing of high price items"
Survey period: October 2 to 6, 2009
Survey method: Internet survey
Survey target: Men and women throughout Japan aged 20 to 69
Sample size: 20,000

Survey categories and items (8 categories, 24 items)
-Food & drinks (water, rice, miso)
-Everyday items (shampoo, skin lotion, toothpaste)
-Information appliances (mobile phone, television, notebook PC)
-Living appliances (vacuum cleaner, washing machine, oven range)
-Business fashion (shoes, bag, shirt)
-Culture & fashion (gym membership, pet related expenditure, hair cut)
-Vehicles (family car, baby buggy, bicycle)
-Life events (domestic travel, presents for family members, eating out)

Topics from the survey results
-The survey showed that there are a considerable number of people who buy skin lotions costing over 10,000 yen that are from households with a yearly income of between 3 and 5 million yen and therefore outside what is to be considered a wealthy group. Special characteristics in shopping habits were also shown, such as people who are susceptible to impulse purchasing, those who often buy new or different items to try them, people attracted to products that other people do not use so much and on the other hand people who are prepared to use old items until they are no longer usable.
-In terms of thinking on compromising on price, it was shown that people are satisfied with products, with a trend for them to have a strong desire to buy products in the same price range again despite feeling that it was expensive. For the 14 items from the 24 that showed particularly interesting analysis results, the special characteristics of the "meriha-rich" consumers were compiled in a summary report.
From data on combined purchases of high price items, cluster analysis (*) was performed by group and it was found that among the "meriha-rich" there were six types with differing characteristics.

*Cluster analysis involves taking a parent group (target) with various data mixed together, collecting together the data that is mathematically similar to make clusters and then analyzing the data by comparing and classifying the clusters.

For the biggest group, the phrase "fami-rich" was coined for the people where the purchase rate is high for home appliances such as vacuum cleaners and televisions, durable consumer goods such as bags and presents for family members. The other 5 types in order of size were "yuto-rich (comfortably rich)", "karada-rich (body rich)", "kurashi-rich (living rich)", "honmono-rich (real thing rich)" and "sunekaji-rich (sponger rich)".

Future developments
Toppan Printing will continue to conduct research on consumption trends. The company will clarify the purchasing of high price goods and use the information compiled as basic materials for formulating new marketing strategies. It is also planned that a research digest report summarizing the results of this survey entitled "INSIGHTS special number" will be distributed to customer companies.

Extract from survey findings: Purchasers of high price goods by item

Extract from survey findings: Classification of types of purchasers of high price items through cluster analysis