A 7-Eleven convenience store in Tokyo Photo: REUTERS file
business

Convenience stores urged to shorten hours, lower labor cost burden

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Why dont these stores operate like they do in other countries where they are a convenience store/ gas station/ EV charging station its not going to work in all locations but sometimes the convenience store is already next to a gas station you could combine the two... unless there is some weird law that prohibits it?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

How about closing a few and opening a few larger stores with more variety. In my area there's 6 7/11's, in one case 2 across the street from each other. 3 family marts as well.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The inconvenient (store) truth

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Let the franchise holders choose their own hours.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In those locations where there are multiple convenience stores in a dense area, if allowed by the mother ship owners could agree to keep one of them in an area open for 24 hours for one month. The others could notify their customers which one is open on any given month between (say 11/7).

Rural ones could begin a "Plan Ahead" campaign (it's done all the time for "Cool Biz") so that sheeple who don't (or can't or won't) might be reminded to replenish enough basics to survive the night.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

7/11 is Uber before Uber but with an even uglier business model.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The labour shortage is because able people won't work for the poor wages they offer! Simple!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

There is no such thing as a labor shortage in Japan. Don't believe this nonsense for a second.

There are tons of students where they can pool from. Put the xenophobia aside, allow anyone to work, pay a “slightly” better than average wage, problem solved.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

For the most part, no customer need worry that their beloved convenience store might be closed when they usually go there. All of the ones pushing for change are ones that no-one goes to in the middle of the night, mostly in sleepy suburbs. The ones in the city 50m apart will probably stay open, because they actually have customers. Franchised convenience stores are run just-in-time with hardcore levels of big data, so they will have an exact picture of the demand at each store.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Convenience store chains in Japan should consider shortening their business hours and help franchise owners cover rising labor costs, a government panel says.

Seems the Politburo has decreed how private businesses should run their companies. Why would they even be getting their collectivist noses involved in things totally unrelated to their jobs?

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

@JeffLee

Just let them do whatever they think they need to do to make money, and stop interfering.

Businesses in Japan have been urged to do many things. Clearly they never really give a damn and just go on doing business as usual.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Considering there are over 50,000 convenience stores in Japan, the entire industry could use a little contraction and a lot of restructuring. It's literally 1 conbini per roughly 2400 people in Japan. That would require massive market penetration and massive market interaction to be able to stay profitable.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Better distribution of the stores would help. In some towns and cities, they are few and far between; in others, you can find 3 or 4 within 100 metres of each other. Choice is fine, but maybe two stores operating successfully and profitably with adequate staffing, is better than four in difficulties.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

What does 7 /11 means ???.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Didn't 7-11 originally mean open from 7am to 11pm?

13 ( +13 / -0 )

Urge! Seen before how that has worked out well. They are Franchises bound by contract to make money for the Franchise even if it's $100 yen over 5hrs. The owner can't pay someone more than ¥1,000 an hr to earn less then ¥100 yen, its a sinking Buisness model and needs changing. Don't understand why the government is involved their fiscal knowledge would hardly hold up in a primary school.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

does this mean they will change the name to ‘inconvenience’ stores

if they wanna continue calling themself "convenience" stores.

Some people should review the definition of convenience store. The open 24h/7 is not part of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convenience_store

I hope franchiseowners willl get to manage their business more freely.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

I say this everytime I see these articles. They don't need to shorten hours. They need to invest in automation. Self checkout machines are being tested and are a huge success. You can cut staff in half easily by nixing the cashier role all together or atleast after hours. You can have one person to oversee things.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

I urge these stores to stay open 24 hours, if they wanna continue calling themself "convenience" stores.

-9 ( +2 / -11 )

So, does this mean they will change the name to ‘inconvenience’ stores?

thus is what happens when you have these stores every 50 meters on the street. Yeah, it’s convenient, but of course they are going to struggle to find all the staff they need to work for less than ¥1,000 per hour.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Just let them do whatever they think they need to do to make money, and stop interfering.

But the actual owners of the franchises do want to run their businesses as they think is right, and that is closing for some of the time. It is the headquarters that insist on the 24hr business model, which makes a lot of branches barely profitable.

16 ( +16 / -0 )

Just let them do whatever they think they need to do to make money, and stop interfering.

Not sure why making recommendations counts as "interference" but anyway, I believe the context here is franchisees who want to do whatever they think they need to do to make money but can't because the franchise chains keep interfering.

Literally the government panel is saying "Let them do what they need to do".

10 ( +12 / -2 )

There is no such thing as a labor shortage in Japan. Don't believe this nonsense for a second.

4 ( +12 / -8 )

Academics enlisted by the government to tell business people how to run their own business. Yeah, right.

Just let them do whatever they think they need to do to make money, and stop interfering.

-1 ( +10 / -11 )

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