Backed By Japan’s WWS Corp, NusaResearch Aims to be Indonesia’s Top Online Research Firm

Indonesian online market research site NusaResearch is a startup that believes its Japanese expertise can spice up the Indonesian research ecosystem. It aims to be the nation’s top online survey site by the end of this year. The company’s secret weapon is the points it offers to members who will help NusaResearch fill in survey questions. Those points can be redeemed for prizes, which at the moment are wired as cash (through iPayMu) or phone credits.

NusaResearch has been operational since November last year with CEO and founder Yoshio Fujii at the helm. The company itself has been invested heavily by Japan-based WWS Corp. The way it operates is simple: members will earn points for filling in online surveys on the site. And the company earns money from conducting those surveys.

Each point is worth IDR 50 (1 US cent) and can be redeemed once you’ve hit a minimum of 500 points. A NusaResearch representative said that its members can generally get 2,500 points every two to three weeks if they routinely fill in surveys on the site. How much is that worth? A meager IDR 125,000 ($13). Although that is quite small, the company still managed to attract about 7,000 members in the past two months.

Process behind the front door

NusaResearch has two websites. The aforementioned .net domain is for its members, while the .com domain is for business clients.

For a standard survey of five questions sent to 300 members, the company charges about IDR 10 million ($1,008) to companies, which means that for every question asked to one member, NusaResearch earns around IDR 6,700 (67 cents). That’s quite a high return if you compare it to the points awarded to members. There are also optional fees for things like screening questions that can make survey projects even more lucrative.

NusaResearch says that it strictly manages its panel (members who answer the surveys) at every stage from registration to survey responding via two main methods: screening members, in which the company manually monitors each members’ activities like past survey results, and system censoring, which automatically checks the project panel through periodic trap, logic, and reverse questions. That will help trim out the invalid respondents from the results.

NusaResearch believes that its main competitors here are iPanelOnline and aipSurveys. And there are three main differentiators for NusaReseach: local manpower and offices, having the most active panel of respondents (accoridng to the company) by offering monthly campaigns and activities, and the aforementioned incentives to its members.

Hearing the true voice of Indonesia

While middle to high income earners in Indonesia would say “no thanks” to the point offers, NusaResearch is useful if you are a company looking to hear the thoughts of Indonesia’s masses – people in low income bracket who are attracted by the promise of an easy IDR 125,000 ($13) cash boost every month or so. That perhaps makes the research best suited to brands inside the general consumer goods industry.

The startup research firm is planning to launch mobile apps so that members can fill in the surveys directly from their smartphones and tablets. And of course, NusaResearch is looking to tie up more deals with merchants to offer more rewards to its users.

PoinWeb and Excite Points are among two Japanese companies who offer reward points to its users for performing various online actions. While Jakarta Founders Institute graduate TicBox also offers online research services in Indonesia.