袋いいです。
The Nikkei says...
One of the hardest things to get used to being back in the City is the lack of convenience stores, which are more omni-present in Tokyo than Duane Reade and Starbucks here. You can't go twenty feet in Tokyo without hitting a 7-Eleven, Family Mart, am-pm, Lawson's, Sunkus, Mini Stop. I'm sure I've forgotten a huge chain or two. Convenience store chains in Japan have been competing fiercely for ages now, getting famous chefs to put their names on prepared ramen and touting the freshness of their sushi and rice products. (7-Eleven's distribution system has been much admired.)
They're probably the most common landmark used to give directions in Japan at this point, and when you move into a new neighborhood, you learn within a week which outlets in your neighborhood are clean and bright and which are the dumps. When you come back to New York, actually having to keep your eye out for something that looks like a bodega when you're out of milk and can't wait for the Fresh Direct order is really disorienting (for me, at least).
Anyway, it wouldn't be surprising if the market were actually close to saturation.
In a survey of convenience stores in 2007 by Nikkei, Inc., the clear sense is that the convenience market has become saturated. Growth in the number of outlets has stalled, reaching 44542 (a 0.4% increase over the previous year), the lowest rate of increase since the survey was first conducted in 1978. And with the percent increase in total revenues also 1.3%, current growth models--increasing profits while opening outlet after outlet--are reaching a point of transition.
One of the hardest things to get used to being back in the City is the lack of convenience stores, which are more omni-present in Tokyo than Duane Reade and Starbucks here. You can't go twenty feet in Tokyo without hitting a 7-Eleven, Family Mart, am-pm, Lawson's, Sunkus, Mini Stop. I'm sure I've forgotten a huge chain or two. Convenience store chains in Japan have been competing fiercely for ages now, getting famous chefs to put their names on prepared ramen and touting the freshness of their sushi and rice products. (7-Eleven's distribution system has been much admired.)
They're probably the most common landmark used to give directions in Japan at this point, and when you move into a new neighborhood, you learn within a week which outlets in your neighborhood are clean and bright and which are the dumps. When you come back to New York, actually having to keep your eye out for something that looks like a bodega when you're out of milk and can't wait for the Fresh Direct order is really disorienting (for me, at least).
Anyway, it wouldn't be surprising if the market were actually close to saturation.
Posted by Sean on
2008-07-22 18:59:26