Consumption tax, Cashless rebates and Coffee shops

In case you are not a DOUTOR regular, you may not have noticed that they recently added QUICPay and iD to their cashless payment options. What’s interesting is that QUICPay and iD are the only way to pay with credit/debit cards. It’s completely contactless, the only swipe-able item is the DOUTOR prepaid store card (which is MIFARE on the reader btw). In other words DOUTOR is all ready for the CASHLESS rebate program that starts tomorrow along with the 10% consumption tax.

But DOUTOR is not listed in the iOS CASHLESS App. 7 Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson are listed there, but MiniStop is not. What is going on? The CASHLESS rebate program is rolling out in waves. The first cut of 500,000 CASHLESS rebate stores goes online October 1, with successive waves at, hopefully, regular 10 day intervals until everybody is onboard. This keeps payment systems from overloading which I think is smart, as a Japanese friend put it, “It’s the smartest thing the Japanese government has done so far.”

You might notice double listings for CASHLESS rebate stores, one for credit cards, one for QR, one for e-payment cards. This is also a startup limitation. Store listings will be consolidated after the program starts.

There are some interesting startup store differences, DOUTOR and Starbucks are not listed, but Cafe Colorado is, and get this: they have the Odagiri Joe marketed AirPay system in place that takes everything from Suica to credit cards to NFC Pay. The local franchise owner is even excited about putting up his CASHLESS poster tomorrow.

If that’s not cashless progress, what is? Regardless of whether the CASHLESS rebate is ‘a success’ or not, it will be a tipping point. Already I notice a shift in public perception: if a store is cash only, it definitely looks behind the times in the minds of customers.

I think that’s the whole point.