Back in February, I wrote about the case of Matsumoto Sunetoshi, a 7-11 franchisee in Osaka who, following the death of his wife, has found it impossible to keep his store running 24-7. But when he tried to limit his stores’ hours, 7 & i Holdings, the corporate entity for 7-11 in Japan, threatened to sue him for breach of contract.
The company’s unsympathetic treatment of a struggling and bereft owner prompted a strong public backlash. In the ensuing fallout, 7 & i Holdings shook up its top management, and vowed to find a more humane approach that takes into account Japan’s changing age demographic.
But what solutions are workable? 24 hour convenience stores are a staple of Japanese society, and provide many useful benefits to people who work late, or simply find themselves with no other options in the middle of the night in a big city. Stores such as Lawson has experimented with limited operations before, only to back off of such experiments when they led to precipitous drops in sales.
For this episode of Unseen Japan Kaiwa, I talked again with English language and American lifestyle YouTuber Misaki about convenience stores in Japan, exactly what makes them so convenient, and why so many people in Japan depend on them. Along the way, I try and share some key facts about the convenience store industry in Japan – its origins, makeup, and future direction.
Please check it out – and if you like it, subscribe to the Unseen Japan Channel on YouTube!
Misaki is a native of Kagoshima, Japan. She currently lives near Seattle, WA, where she works as a dental hygienist. Misaki maintains her own YouTube channel where she teaches English to Japanese speakers, and shares tips and tricks for getting by in America.
