Taking the 15-minute walk from her home to her office in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, every morning, Noriko Kato, 29, looks at the tiny screen on her DoCoMo 505i mobile phone to check her e-mail and sometimes access her favorite shopping site, run by Netprice Ltd.
Purchasing goods ranging from a necklace to cosmetic essence to cake via her mobile phone became a monthly routine for Kato since last summer, when she received a flier in the mail displaying mobile shopping items from the online seller.
"I check items in a paper catalog first and access the mobile site to order," she said. "Using a mobile handset is a lot easier than filling out a mail-order form and going to the mailbox to send it."