I currently stay in japan. The competition here is intense when it comes to food and drink. Every alley, even in residential areas in the back of the houses, has some mom & pop operated hole in the wall eatery. I never see more than two customers at many of these places at a time, but they stay open ungodly hours. I can't imagine they would be making more than $2-3 an hour on the average after all the costs.
The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
31–40 of 233 posts
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#327-11 is not friendly to Franchisees in the US either.
There have been some lawsuits even
Owning a convenience store is a hard proposition
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#33Even for HN, these are some of the most empathy-deficient comments that I've ever read. Yes, it's true that there is a huge problem with overwork for the franchisees. But those stores aren't there (just) for you. Imagine this scenario: you're over 80, living on your own and not very mobile. The fact that there's a 7-eleven within 100 metres that sells a large variety of foodstuffs and essential items in single portio…
Oh - update! I'm living in a farming & fishing village about 800 metres from the nearest combi.
After the local village shop shut down, the railway station 7-eleven started sending a van into the village once a week on a Wednesday afternoon so that the old people in the village could get their groceries.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#34Just came back from Japan and man are there too many convenience stores. Within any given area there is probably 6 to 7 stores within eyeshot and an easy walk. It's weird thinking that they are too convenient, but honestly they start to become pointless. More than once we simply walked by a few knowing that there would be another one just a minute or two more down the street. It's great that we could find something t…
> Within any given area there is probably 6 to 7 stores within eyeshot and an easy walk.
That's just Tokyo and it's a very biased impression. Most places in Japan don't have that kind of density of combinis. I there there are about 55 000 combini in Japan, and there's probably 20% of that in Tokyo alone so you were in an area that's not representative of japan as a whole. In most other other cities there's rarely more than one combini at the same place, and you would not see 5-6 of them just by walking 5 minutes.
> I couldn't figure out how these places earn enough money to keep the lights on given the competition, now I guess I know.
Of course they earn money. They sell products with a high markup (like 30% more than everything you find in a supermarket), they have their own lines of products with even higher profit margins, and there's usually a density of population that guarantees a minimum of business viability anyway. Never seen a combini owner that was poor or having a hard time to make ends meet.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#35The problem is capitalism and not really 7-11. If 7-11 didn't do this, family mart would and the guy would probably lose his store altogether.
Capitalism doesn't care about people or the distress they feel during transitions. It's very effective at generally raising up the living standards of all people, but can be pretty inhumane at times when dealing with certain groups of people who's skills and services are becoming obsolete.
The only choice really is retraining and switching careers and having social safety nets. The other alternative, socialism, just spreads the pain across the entire world.
Our only realistic chance at reducing global poverty anytime soon is via capitalism. Sucks for this 7-11 owner, but that's how it goes.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#36I also just came back from Tokyo and Osaka; I was blown away by how many 7/11s there were and how close they were. The vending machines are amazing. One other thing I would like to import: the widely available, clean bathrooms all over the place. That was super nice.
Free public bathrooms everywhere was nice, but there was still a dearth of free public water fountains -- which, admittedly, most cities don't have enough of. Rome is kind of the gold standard in this regard. I loved how some of the vending machines and convenience stores sold hot canned drinks. I've never seen that anywhere in the US. Now the hot canned coffee wasn't actually good (I had to try it), but it was inter…
To be fair a lot of people use the hot coffee to just as a hand warmer, coffee is just a nice extra on top of that.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#37Even for HN, these are some of the most empathy-deficient comments that I've ever read. Yes, it's true that there is a huge problem with overwork for the franchisees. But those stores aren't there (just) for you. Imagine this scenario: you're over 80, living on your own and not very mobile. The fact that there's a 7-eleven within 100 metres that sells a large variety of foodstuffs and essential items in single portio…
Right, but the solution is probably automation and not overworked to death franchise owners.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#38I admire the courage of people who run their own business but I don't think that life would ever be for me. I love working 40-48 hours a week and leaving my work at work when I go home.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#39Even for HN, these are some of the most empathy-deficient comments that I've ever read. Yes, it's true that there is a huge problem with overwork for the franchisees. But those stores aren't there (just) for you. Imagine this scenario: you're over 80, living on your own and not very mobile. The fact that there's a 7-eleven within 100 metres that sells a large variety of foodstuffs and essential items in single portio…
Right, but the solution is probably automation and not overworked to death franchise owners.
Overwork is better than no work. Automation may be part of the solution, but on its own it fails.
Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store
#407-11 is not friendly to Franchisees in the US either. There have been some lawsuits even Owning a convenience store is a hard proposition
It's not just 7-Eleven. I wouldn't want to be a franchisee of any sort in the US. The power dynamic is horrible.
McDonald's is probably one of the better ones. But you're still beholden to them. They often own the land under the building, if not the building itself. They tell you exactly what you must do. They tell you when to remodel. They make you buy from their suppliers. They can decide to open another store a mile away from yours.
But longer term I think the worst franchise to be in will be car dealerships. Once EVs become mainstream, the service revenue will fall by about 80%. There's just so much less to go wrong. How will dealers be able to pay for the overhead of their giant buildings?