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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

#221

Post by elgenie »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #149
elgenie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese GDP now is ~$500B less than it was in 1995. [1] A country can't experience 25 years of economic stagnation as a whole and magically generate a large cohort of young people with money to throw around. Things are a little better in purchasing power per capita terms [2], but not by enough to make a difference. [1] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... [2] https://www.google.com/publicd…

"Japanese GDP now is ~$500B less than it was in 1995." Yet in 2012 it was $800B more than in 1995? From your graph it has been mostly been stable.

Hence "economic stagnation".

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

#223

Post by frutiger »

psychomugs wrote: post #108
frutiger wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait til you visit Manhattan and see how many CVSes and Duane Reades there are!

It's still nothing compared to the density of conibinis in Tokyo, sometimes there's 2 of the same chain within eyeshot.

I have visited Tokyo twice and the density is not that remarkable. There are corners and blocks of downtown Manhattan where there are multiple pharmacies, Starbucks, Chase banks etc all within eyeshot. Wherever there are lots of people squeezed into a small space, they need all these services readily available 24 hours a day.

The density of Manhattan is ~73,000/sq mi[1], whereas Shinjuku is merely ~48,000/sq mi and Shibuya is only ~38,000/sq mi. Note that Manhattan is much bigger than Shinjuku or Shibuya so this should actually work against Manhattan in these statistics.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibuya

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

#224

Post by frutiger »

magduf wrote: post #197
ken wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to what? Here in the USA there are several places within walking distance from my home that have a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks. One of them is an intersection where 3 of the 4 corners have a Starbucks. There's at least one building here with 2 Starbucks in it, in case taking the elevator is too much hassle. Japan doesn't sound all that much different in this respect.

To be fair, a Japanese convenience store is far more useful than a Starbucks. You can buy all kinds of things there, including healthy foods. Starbucks mostly just has overpriced coffee drinks and confections. At a conbini, you can get a healthy meal, and you can even microwave it there, you can get cash from the ATM, you can get a SIM card for your phone, etc. The two just aren't comparable.

A better equivalent than a Starbucks would be a pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens, which do stock light fare such as sandwiches etc. Most of this food is usually dry or unpalatable unlike the savoury foods available in Tokyo convenience stores. NYC will have a "dollar slice" pizza joint open til 3 AM or 4 AM depending on the neighbourhood.

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

#225

Post by brighter2morrow »

frutiger wrote: post #223
psychomugs wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still nothing compared to the density of conibinis in Tokyo, sometimes there's 2 of the same chain within eyeshot.

I have visited Tokyo twice and the density is not that remarkable. There are corners and blocks of downtown Manhattan where there are multiple pharmacies, Starbucks, Chase banks etc all within eyeshot. Wherever there are lots of people squeezed into a small space, they need all these services readily available 24 hours a day. The density of Manhattan is ~73,000/sq mi[1], whereas Shinjuku is merely ~48,000/sq mi and S…

I don't know about the Japanese figures, but want to note those figures for Manhattan are just the residential population. The "daytime" population that counts all the workers who come in is 5x that.

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

#226

Post by chasontherobot »

fiblye wrote: post #56
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.

I’ve noticed that the number of usable combini toilets is on a steep decline in major cities and tourist areas. A few years ago they were all public and free to use at any time. Then English signs saying “Close the door. Don’t make a mess. Don’t stand on the toilets. Don’t do (xyz common sense thing)” started popping up. Then I saw a few saying “please alert staff if you’d like to use the toilets and we will give you…

I've only found a lack of public toilets in conbini in notorious party areas/tourist locations (Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Shibuya, etc). Any conbini outside of those, or even just on the outskirts have usable toilets.

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

#227

Post by baby »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #192
baby wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not true. There are only a few countries in south-east asia with drinkable tap water: brunei, hong kong, japan, singapore, and south korea. You should probably not have drunk that water in Bangkok.

Even within a country, whether a specific city has potable water or not can vary. Bangkok technically has potable water from its source, but the pipes it might travel through can be broken and dirty (the same is true in Beijing, actually). In this case, you can get lucky...but it is better not to chance it.

Tap Water is not drinkable in beijing. I used to live there.

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

#228

Post by frutiger »

brighter2morrow wrote: post #225
frutiger wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have visited Tokyo twice and the density is not that remarkable. There are corners and blocks of downtown Manhattan where there are multiple pharmacies, Starbucks, Chase banks etc all within eyeshot. Wherever there are lots of people squeezed into a small space, they need all these services readily available 24 hours a day. The density of Manhattan is ~73,000/sq mi[1], whereas Shinjuku is merely ~48,000/sq mi and S…

I don't know about the Japanese figures, but want to note those figures for Manhattan are just the residential population. The "daytime" population that counts all the workers who come in is 5x that.

I agree, but it's worth noting that the density of after hours (as in 2 AM) food spots will usually be related to residential density and not commercial/office density. There will always be exceptions (e.g. the East Village) but I suspect they are the overwhelming minority.

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

#229

Post by zimpenfish »

hudibras wrote: post #163
fnord77 wrote: post #158

> The owner, in his 40s, said he works 500 hours a month. how is this even possible? That would be almost 17 hours a day, 7 days a week for a 30-day month.

It's not; he's lying.

Do you have a source for that claim? The article doesn't give me enough information to judge but I might have missed something.

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

#230

Post by brazzy »

magduf wrote: post #194
Retric wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as your chasing profit not revenue expenses are already part of the equation. If being open at 2am provides 1$ an hour of profit, that’s still profit.

It's questionable if you're going to get any profit at all when you have to pay someone to man the store at odd hours when there's almost no customers. A few people coming in during the late-night shift and buying $3 worth of stuff each is not going to pay that employee's salary.

Have you read the article? The franchise pushes the store owner to make it work anyway, and since the employee's salary would eat his profit, he cannibalizes his free time and sleep instead. The franchise contract is probably structured in a way that the franchise company profits even from stores that are themselves barely profitable.
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