Management System for Regional Electronic Coupon

Hiroki Satoh

, Toshiomi Moriki

, Yuuichi Kurosawa

, Tasuku Soga

Miho Kobayashi

and Norihisa Komoda

Research & Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., 1-280, Higashi-koigakubo Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8601, Japan

Code Solutions, Co.,Ltd., Daidoseimei south building 9th floor, 1-2-11 Edobori Nishi-ku, Osaka 550-0022, Japan

komoda@codesol.jp

Keywords: Electronic Currency, Electronic Coupon, User Interface, Regional Vitalization.

Abstract: We propose a regional electronic coupon management system. This system is for events where many local

shopping streets in Japan offer special menus and rediscover the local shopping streets and their appeal. It has

a web application for customers that incorporates a mechanism that allows customers and store clerks to

interact with each other, and a function for event organizers that can visualize the success of the event every

hour. The proposal system was used in actual events and was well received.

1 INTRODUCTION

In Japan, regional revitalization events are increasing.

Japan has a declining birth rate and an aging society,

and the local youth population is decreasing and the

vitality of the region is declining (Muramatsu, 2011).

A decline in regional vitality leads to a decline in the

regional economy. As a solution to this problem, local

currency introduction studies and regional

revitalization events are being carried out (Kido,

2005) (Onitsuka, 2018).

In Japan, electronic money is spreading. In Japan,

smartphones have become widespread, and anyone

can easily use electronic money. In recent years, the

government has been aiming to spread electronic

money, and has implemented measures to reduce the

consumption tax from 10% to 5% when making

payments with electronic money.

In this research, we propose an electronic money

utilization system for regional revitalization events.

Provide new value by incorporating electronic money

into local revitalization events. The target regional

revitalization event is an eating and walking event in

a local shopping district called “Town Bar”.

Conventionally, a special menu based on the number

of paper coupons has been provided using paper

coupons. This will be changed to an electronic

coupon to provide customers and stores with

automated payments and event organizers to see the

entire event.

2 OUTLINE OF REGIONAL

ELECTRONIC COUPON

2.1 Regional Revitalization Event

"Town Bar"

There is an event called “Town Bar” as part of

preventing the decline of the local economy. Figure 1

shows a conceptual diagram of a “Town Bar”.

Figure 1: Conceptual diagram of a “Town Bar”.

The local residents who have purchased the

coupons are aiming to rediscover the local attractions

by eating and walking around the restaurants in the

target shopping street. In the conventional “Town

Bar”, first the event organizer sells paper coupons to

Satoh, H., Moriki, T., Kurosawa, Y., Soga, T., Kobayashi, M. and Komoda, N.

Management System for Regional Electronic Coupon.

DOI: 10.5220/0009490505710578

In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2020) - Volume 2, pages 571-578

ISBN: 978-989-758-423-7

571

a customer, and the customer pays the paper coupon

to a store.

When customers pay with paper coupons, a

special menu is offered at a great price. The aim is for

customers to enjoy the great menu and continue to be

a fan of the store and keep coming to the store.

2.2 Validation and Implementation

Issues of Regional Electronic

Coupons

We examined the validity of electronic coupons to

solve the problem of event management using paper

coupons. Next, we clarified the issues of

implementing electronic coupons.

In the event operation using paper coupons, there

are problems that it is necessary to manually count the

number of paper coupons and it is difficult to grasp

the state of the event. Conventionally, stores had to

bring paper coupons received from customers to the

event organizer after the event, count the number of

coupons, check sales, and exchange money with the

organizer. Sometimes it was discovered that coupons

had been lost and counting them was a heavy burden.

Also, the event organizer could not check only the

sales results, and could not monitor customer

behavior and hourly sales.

The regional electronic coupon is effective in

solving this problem. The regional electronic coupon

digitizes the payment method like digital currency.

Instead of physically paying with paper coupons, you

pay with electronic coupons on your smartphone.

Because it is digitized, it is possible to record who

paid whom and when. Therefore, sales can be

calculated automatically, and event status can be

monitored from sales data. The burden on the store is

reduced, and the event organizer can grasp the state

of the event in detail.

However, there were three issues to implement

the regional electronic coupon. The first point is to

consider how to introduce digital devices without

installing them in stores. Most of the stores

participating in “Town Bar” are private stores, and it

is difficult to bear the additional cost of introducing

the regional electronic coupon. The second point is

the creation of a new settlement method that has the

characteristics of “Town Bar”. Existing digital

payment methods cannot be used because digital

terminals for payment cannot be installed in stores.

Therefore, a new settlement method is needed. The

third point is to provide a means to grasp the entire

event and details. It is impossible for event organizers

who are not data analysis experts to output payment

data to an electronic file and analyze it with

spreadsheet software.

2.3 Proposal of Regional Electronic

Coupon Management System

We propose a regional electronic coupon

management system to solve the regional electronic

coupon implementation issues shown in Section 2.2.

Table 1 shows the functions that require the proposed

system to solve the problems in Section 2.2.

Table 1: Functional requirements of regional electronic

coupon management system.

System

Requirements

Description

Payment with

a single

smartphone

The ability to make payments using

only the smartphones owned by

customers.

Interaction

between

customers and

stores

The system has a function that allows

customers and stores to interact with

each other during settlement.

Event

management

and analysis

The ability to manage and analyze the

status of the entire event.

The ability to complete payments with a single

smartphone solves the problem of implementing

regional electronic coupons without installing new

digital devices in stores. Implementing this function,

regional electronic coupons can be introduced

without placing an economic burden on local stores.

The settlement function with interaction between

the customer and the store solves the problem of

creating a new payment method with the

characteristics of "Town Bar". The settlement

function with interaction between customers and

stores solves the problem of creating a new settlement

method that has the characteristics of a “Town bar”.

By realizing this function, it is possible to introduce a

local electronic coupon that is different from the

existing settlement method, while taking advantage of

the significance of "Town Bar" whose main purpose

is to rediscover the local area.

The function to visually check the entire event and

individual details solves the problem of providing a

means to grasp the status of the event. Adding this

function, the event organizer can analyze the situation

of the entire event, use it for the next event, and

advertise the success of the event.

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3 SYSTEM CONFIGULATION

3.1 System Overview

Figure 2 shows an overview of the proposed regional

electronic coupon management system. The customer

pays cash to the event organizer and receives an

electronic coupon. This electronic coupon can only be

used at local stores participating in the “Town Bar”

event and it is classified as a regional gift certificate

or regional coupon (Kurita, 2012).

Figure 2: Regional electronic coupon management system

overview.

The proposed system consists of a website for

mobile devices, and customers can use their

smartphone and e-mail address on the same day

without downloading the application if they have an

e-mail address. Also, the event organizer can grasp

the usage status of the participant's “Town Bar” event

at any time via the electronic coupon system. Table 2

shows a list of data acquired by the electronic coupon

management system.

Table 2: List of the regional electric coupon management

system acquisition data.

Name

Data description

E-mail

address

“Town Bar” customer’s email-address

(which used as user-ID)

Charges

Times of electric coupon charges

Information

of food/ drink

menus

Coupons used for food/ drink orders

- Times of food/drink orders

- Number of shops visited

- Number of coupons used each order

Comments

Word-of-mouth information by

visitors. They can leave a comment

each time the coupon used and show

thanks to the shop owners and

advertisements to other users.

3.2 Functional Features

This system is roughly composed of three types of

functions. The first is a function for providing fun to

the user. The second is a function for managing cash

transfer between customers and stores for stores and

event organizers. The third is a function for analyzing

the movement of a customer, the exchange status

between a customer and a store, the information of

money transfer between the customer and the store

and displaying the result for the event organizer.

Functions for providing fun to the user include an

"information providing function", a "comment

posting function", and an "exchange settlement

function". The "information provision function" is a

function for providing information from the store to

the customer with menus and recommendations, so

that the customer can easily come to the store. The

"comment posting function" is a function that allows

customers to post impressions of shops and events,

which can be viewed by event participants and all

stores. The "interchange settlement function" is a

function that completes settlement by the customer

and the clerk simultaneously pressing and holding the

screen of the smartphone at the time of settlement and

aims to promote conversation and exchange. This

function is described in section 3.4.

The functions for managing the transfer of money

between the customer and the store include a “QR

(Quick Response) code settlement function”, a

“finance settlement data management function”, and

a “money transfer display function”. The “QR code

settlement function” is a function that completes the

payment by reading the special menu provided by the

customer with the QR code, eliminating the need for

the store to prepare a digital device. The “financial

settlement data management function” saves the

payments made with the smartphone in the server

database. “Money transfer display function” is a

function that displays who used the coupon when and

where it is, displays your own coupon usage history

for customers, and displays all coupon usage history

for event organizers can do.

The event information analysis function includes

a “customer analysis function”, a “coupon usage

analysis function”, and an “analysis result display

function”. The “customer analysis function” is a

function that can display the number of times a digital

coupon has been purchased and the number of times

a digital coupon has been used for each customer and

compare them. The "coupon usage analysis function"

is a function for displaying and comparing the digital

coupon usage history for each customer, each store,

and each time. The “analysis result display function”

Regional Electronic Coupon Systems

Event Organizer

Customers

Local shops

Paying the cash (charges)

Giving e-coupons

Joining

the event

Serving

food/drinks

Clearance and settlement

Collecting purchase data

Management System for Regional Electronic Coupon

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is a function for displaying an event analysis result on

a map. You can see how the event has changed over

time.

3.3 Functional Configuration

Figure 3 shows a functional configuration diagram of

the proposed system. The proposed system consists

of a server and a client-type IT system using a

smartphone as a client. It is provided as a web

application to a smartphone used by a customer to

perform screen operations and input / output data. The

server runs in the cloud and performs input / output

of the database and display of data analysis results.

The functions executed on the smartphone are

"information providing function", "comment posting

function", "exchange settlement function", " QR code

settlement function", and "money transfer display

function". The functions to be executed on the server

are "finance settlement data management function",

"money transfer display function", "customer

analysis function", "coupon usage analysis function",

and "analysis result display function".

Figure 3: Functional configuration diagram.

3.4 User Experience Design

The conventional electronic money payment user

interface is designed to quickly complete payment in

terms of processing efficiency. On the other hand, the

main purpose of “Town Bar” is to revitalize the area

through interaction between customers and stores, so

it is important to promote interaction between

customers and clerks. Therefore, we propose a user

interface that incorporates the joint work of the user

and the clerk at the time of settlement and induce

natural communication happening between the

customer and the clerk.

Figures 4 and 5 show the proposed user interface.

As a collaborative effort to induce conversation

between the customer and the clerk, we propose an

interaction in which the user and the clerk

simultaneously "press and hold" the screen of one

smartphone. The screen design is such that a bar is

displayed on the screen and a “long press” advances

the bar, and payment is completed when the bar

advances to the full bar. This screen design aims to

provide a starting point for conversation in the time

that two people hold down the button. In order to

make the payment operation with one smartphone

easier to understand, the screen design is designed so

that the customer who pays the electronic coupon

using the smartphone is on the front side and the clerk

receiving the coupon is on the opposite side.

Figure 4: Touch user interface.

Figure 5: Payment user interface.

4 INTERFACE FOR

MANEGEMENT AND

ANALYSIS

4.1 Management Analysis Interface

The management analysis interface is used by the

organizer to grasp the state of the event and to analyze

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the event result. Using the management analysis

interface, it is possible to visually confirm customer

behavior, store sales, and the degree of interaction.

The management analysis interface can dynamically

display changes over time. With this screen, you can

analyze the movement of customers for each time

zone and which time zone was prosperous, and based

on the analysis results, you can operate the next event

more smoothly.

Table 3 shows the type of the management

analytics interface. Figures 6 shows a screen design

of the store sales analysis interface. Figure 7 shows

the screen design of the sales and marketing analysis

interface. Due to the small number of data elements

retrieved, both interfaces cannot yet display all data

elements. The August 2020 event will capture more

data elements and make all the features of the

interface available. Currently, the user data analytics

interface allows you to see how people and stores are

changing sales as events change.

Table 3: Types of management analysis interface.

Type

Description

Store sales

analysis

Displays sales and customer attribute

information for each store.

Sales and

marketing

analysis

Displays the number of visitors,

attributes, and store sales rankings for

the entire event.

User Data

Analysis

Displays the movement of each user

or all users on the map.

4.2 User Data Analysis Viewer

Figures 8 and 9 show screens for analyzing and

displaying user data. The screen displays the date and

customer behavior information for each shop on the

left side. There is a map on the right, which shows the

shops participating in the event, user comments,

payments and electronic coupon purchases. On the

lower side is time information of the selected date and

indicates at what time the customer paid with the

electronic coupon or purchased the electronic coupon.

The screen displays changes dynamically as the time

changes. As a result, it is possible to grasp on the map

where the customer is paying, purchasing coupons,

and sending comments. In the example shown in

Figure 6, it is displayed that after 15:00, an electronic

coupon has been purchased and a plurality of

electronic coupons have been paid at the shop at the

bottom of the screen.

When the same user is paying at a different store

during different hours, the system determines that the

user has moved and displays the movement on the

screen. In the example of Figure 7, a customer pays

with an electronic coupon at the upper store and then

pays with an electronic coupon at the lower store, so

a small circle is displayed on the screen. This small

circle moves dynamically from the top store to the

bottom store. The method of displaying this

movement is simple because it is not GPS

information. However, by displaying this, you can

immediately confirm that the user is using multiple

shops.

Figure 6: Store sales analysis interface screen.

Management System for Regional Electronic Coupon

575

Figure 7: Sales and marketing analysis interface screen.

Figure 8: Example of user data analysis viewer screen.

4.3 Usage Scenario

The management and analysis function of the

proposed electronic coupon system is used when the

event organizer analyzes the improvement and effect

of the event, and when the event organizer promotes

the success of the event to event participants and

supporters.

When analyzing the improvement and effect of

the event, the payment by the customer, the comment

of the customer, the movement of the customer are

displayed every hour. By confirming the payment,

you can see which store the customer visited. By

checking the comments, you can confirm whether the

interaction between the customer and the store was

thriving. By confirming the movement, it is possible

to anticipate the movement of a person at a future

event, and to consider the response.

When promoting the success of an event, payouts,

distinctive comments and movements are clearly

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Figure 9: Screen example showing movement of people.

displayed. Unlike analysis, it shows what has been

done in an easy-to-understand manner. Multiple

payment information is displayed at once, the number

of comments is carefully selected, the movement of

people is highlighted, the content of the event is

clearly displayed, and the success is impressed.

5 APPLICATIONS

The proposed regional electronic coupon system was

introduced on a trial basis at “Bunjibar”, a "Town

Bar" event held in Kokubunji, Tokyo, Japan.

“Bunjibar” has been held in the shopping district

around Kokubunji Station in Tokyo since 2013, and

it is the ninth time in 2019. The proposed system was

piloted in 2018 and 2019. Table 4 shows an overview

of “Bunjibar” in 2018, and Table 5 shows an

overview of “Bunjibar” in 2019.

The proposed system was first tested in 2018.

There were six stores that accept electronic coupons,

but stores that accept electronic coupons ranked first

and second in sales. In 2019, participation in

electronic coupons increased to 22 stores in 2019, and

stores supporting electronic coupons again ranked

first and second in sales.

We surveyed comments from customers, store

staff, and event organizers to see if the proposed

system met the functional requirements described in

Section 2.3.

The comment from the viewpoint of payment with

a single smartphone is as follows. "It was nice and

simple that the process was completed with just my

smartphone." "We could easily respond to

digitization simply by attaching a QR code to the

menu we were using so far." "We have reduced the

trouble of counting paper coupons, which has

shortened the cashing process from three days to one

day."

The comments from the viewpoint of interaction

between the customer and the store are as follows.

"It's fun to work with the store staff, and it's

interesting to see others paying on their

smartphones." "I felt that there would be no

mechanical settlement when there was some kind of

embarrassment on the paying side and the receiving

side."

The comment from the viewpoint of event

management and analysis are as follows. "It's great to

get an overview of the event." "It was useful to clarify

how customers use coupons depending on the date

and time." "I understand who uses coupons at

multiple stores on the same day and who uses

coupons at different stores on another day. I would

like to consider creating different benefits for those

customers." "I want you to show it in conjunction

with the weather and temperature. I would like to

change the menu offered on weekdays and holidays

and offer a special menu when participating in

multiple shops." "I want to know the customers who

came to the store after the event. I would like

customers to use local electronic coupons and use

them in various ways."

Based on the survey results, we conclude that the

proposed system contributes to the management and

operation of regional electronic coupons.

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577

Table 4: Summary of event, “Bunjibar” in 2018.

Name

Description

Event period

During 26

Aug to 1

Sep., 2018

Place

Around Kokubunji Station, Tokyo

Format of food/

drink coupons

Paper-based or electronic coupons

provided. (400 JPY x 7 / set)

Num. of shops

42 shops. (6 shops: e-coupon

ready)

Number of

visitors

Approx. 450 visitors (42: e-coupon

users)

Types of shops

Bar and Izakaya: 18 shops (43%)

Restaurant: 12 shops (29%)

Café and coffee: 6 shops (14%)

Others: 6 shops (14%)

Table 5: Summary of event, “Bunjibar” in 2019.

Name

Description

Event period

During 25

to 31

Aug., 2019

Place

Around Kokubunji Station, Tokyo

Format of food/

drink coupons

Paper-based or electronic coupons

provided. (400 JPY x 7 / set)

Num. of shops

49 shops. (22 shops: e-coupon

ready)

Number of

visitors

Approx. 512 visitors (52: e-coupon

users)

Types of shops

Bar and Izakaya: 22 shops (45%)

Restaurant: 16 shops (33%)

Café and coffee: 6 shops (12%)

Others: 5 shops (10%)

6 CONCLUSIONS

We proposed a regional electronic coupon

management system. The proposed system

incorporates a mechanism that allows local shopping

malls held in Japan to provide special menus,

rediscover local shopping streets and their appeal, and

allow customers and shop clerks to interact with each

other. The proposal system was used in actual events

and was well received.

REFERENCES

Muramatsu N., Akiyama, H., 2011.

Japan: super-aging society preparing for the future.

The Gerontologist, 51(4), 425–432.

Kido, K., Hasegawa, S. and Komoda, N., 2005.

Enhanced Community Currency Trading through

Transaction Group Formation. CIMCA, 1, 229-234.

Onitsuka, K.; Hoshino, S., 2018.

Inter-community networks of rural leaders and key

people: Case study on a rural revitalization program in

Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.

Journal of Rural Studies, 61, 123-136.

Kurita, K., Miyazaki, Y. and Nishibe, M., 2012.

CC Coupon Circulation and Shopkeepers’ Behaviour:

A Case Study of the City of Musashino, Tokyo, Japan.

International Journal of Community Currency

Research, 14(1), 136-145.

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