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The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#211

Post by zrobotics »

Tharkun wrote: post #187
mft_ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to cast aspersions on Belgium, but that's atypical. My experience is that wherever you are in the world, McDonald's is usually reliable for its food (you know what you're getting, even if you're not a huge fan of it) and its decent toilets. (I admit there may be some residual rose-tinted-ness to my opinion here, after staying on a Greek island years ago; after days struggling with the idiosyncratic local…

Really? I don't recall ever having used a clean McDo toilet. I can clearly recall filthy toilets in France, Belgium & the UK. I'm not sure where you frequent McDo, but it sounds to me like your experience is more atypical than mine.

At least in the US, if I'm on the road and need to use the toilet I'll prefer to stop at mickey D's; I don't like the food so I'll often only buy a small order of fries but they're generally a very reliable bet as far as some of the most decent restrooms available.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#212

Post by asdff »

magduf wrote: post #198
RyJones wrote: post #24

I 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.

>One other thing I would like to import: the widely available, clean bathrooms all over the place. That was super nice. Don't forget how almost every public restroom even has a washlet. But we can't have these things in the US. Americans can't even be bothered to flush the toilet, and like to scrawl graffiti on bathroom walls. The only way we'd have the super-clean public bathrooms of Japan is to keep them locked, or…

Americans can't be bothered to pay for a janitor. Airports are a near constant flow of people using the bathroom, and they are fine because it's someones job to regularly come in and clean the resulting mess.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#213

Post by asdff »

typeliftr wrote: post #122
mft_ wrote: post #118

It would seem that this is ripe for automation, no? In fact, I've been surprised for some time that there hasn't been a greater development/proliferation in this area. It would seem that a large (room-sized) refrigerated vending machine offering a range equivalent to a small convenience store is already highly technologically feasible, and would probably be far more cost efficient (smaller footprint, much lower staff…

I feel like vandalism and theft would be a big problem in this scenario.

It always comes down to that, but what's stopping a company from hiring someone located anywhere in the world with a big monitor to stare at 20 feeds and just hit an alarm and call the cops when people get disgraceful? Have the cams only flip on with motion even. Could probably do it for dollars a day in some countries.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#214

Post by asdff »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #167
aidenn0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to any McD's franchisee about all-day breakfast if you want a comparably "unpopular with franchisees" brand requirement.

I like the all day breakfast because it can be nice if I stayed up really late the night before and I'm getting "breakfast" at noon. I don't see the point of it past, like, 1 or 2 though.

The 24h mcd by me stops serving dinner at 2am, right when the drunks flood the lines and there are two people working the entire store. Possible reason right there.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#215

Post by asdff »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #137
esyir wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mile is a somewhat long distance to walk though. A hundred meters takes less than a minute, enough that I'll just pop out and get something random. the 10min++ to walk a mile is an exponential increase in friction.

Nobody walks in LA or most of california. You drive everywhere you need to go. CA is suburban with the exception of SF. A mile is a short drive. A convenience store every 100m is kind of excessive.

It depends on where you live. Tons of people go car free in CA, even in LA. Rent a car for the road trip, or a truck for ikea. A mile might be a short distance, but a long time and a longer park depending on the time of day. There are a lot more people motorcycling/biking/skateboarding/scootering in LA than ten years ago, because there are too many cars, not enough spots, and not enough space on the road to move them. And if you work downtown there are lots of places you can live that fall along the limited rail lines.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#216

Post by asdff »

esyir wrote: post #89
ariwilson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA's a bad example; while there may not be a 7-Eleven every hundred meters, there's certainly one within a mile radius of most people in the city.

A mile is a somewhat long distance to walk though. A hundred meters takes less than a minute, enough that I'll just pop out and get something random. the 10min++ to walk a mile is an exponential increase in friction.

1 mile = 20 minute walk, 10 minute skateboard, 5 min bike, 3 min electric scooter, 2 min electric bike, for reference.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#218

Post by CydeWeys »

irq11 wrote: post #185
CydeWeys wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find that to be true to such a degree. I was tracking the prices of vending machines pretty closely in Japan, and if you didn't jump at the first one you saw and waited until a more out of the way one, you could typically find almost anything in the 100-120 yen range. My favorites were the "100 yen special" machines where most or all items were 100 yen. The prices were in large red lettering to emphasize the…

Those 100 yen machines are rare. I lived in Kyoto, and can recall seeing only one in the city. People would go out of their way to use it. More typically, you will see machines that have 120円 prices by reducing sizes. Buy the same drink in the conbini next door, and you’d get twice the volume. Regardless, if you’re in a place where vending machine prices are lower than usual, it only means that the store prices are l…

For what it's worth I saw more of them in Kyoto than in Tokyo. I was staying around here: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0086507,135.7541648,17.51z

It did bother me that I could never tell what the actual size of the drink was going to be. Is it in kanji, or is it just not listed at all? I definitely had a situation where I was expecting a full normal sized bottle of green tea but got a smaller one.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#219

Post by magduf »

magduf wrote: post #208
zrobotics wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly OT, but I haven't heard this: are the vending machines in Japan dispensing real ice cream and not soft-serve? Very interesting, if so I would imagine the mechanics have to be far more robust/complicated. Or is it still soft-serve, but just higher-quality? edit: by soft-serve, I mean any of the thinner ice cream/frozen yogurt alternatives as opposed to the (usually very thick) real ice cream.

No, the machines I got ice cream from were dispensing real, solid ice cream. They were shaped as cones and on sticks for easy handling, but they were real ice cream, not that soft-serve crap. Yes, I imagine these machines would have to be pretty robust to maintain those temperatures in Japan's hot climate.

Note: some varieties actually had waffle cones; others did not. There were also handy recycling bins right next to the ice cream machines, placed by the vendor, just for the rubbish from that machine.

Re: The realities of 'owning' a Japanese convenience store

#220

Post by magduf »

asdff wrote: post #212
magduf wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One other thing I would like to import: the widely available, clean bathrooms all over the place. That was super nice. Don't forget how almost every public restroom even has a washlet. But we can't have these things in the US. Americans can't even be bothered to flush the toilet, and like to scrawl graffiti on bathroom walls. The only way we'd have the super-clean public bathrooms of Japan is to keep them locked, or…

Americans can't be bothered to pay for a janitor. Airports are a near constant flow of people using the bathroom, and they are fine because it's someones job to regularly come in and clean the resulting mess.

Janitors can't do anything about graffiti. There's no graffiti in Japan like there is in America; it's a cultural difference. People there are trained from a very early age in school to not destroy or disfigure things needlessly. Americans aren't taught any such thing, because we think that parents should be the only ones to teach values, not schools.
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