More and more stores can’t secure a profit. With competition just down the street, raising prices to cover higher wages risks turning off customers who’ve become accustomed to steady prices for a generation.

500ml drink at convenience store =130 yen

1.5l of same drink at supermarket = 130 yen, the 500ml size is 80 yen

simple onigiri at convenience store = 120 yen

simple onigiri at supermarket = 60-70 yen

They can't make a profit because there are no planning restrictions to stop others building more and more. The solution would be to jack up the rates for existing ones and not allow others to be built. They are ugly, overlit buildings that do not improve the urban landscape. It is not a "good" to have lots of them.

Also because the media is/are corporations tied to towing the cooperate line and refuse to tell the public about inflation. Companies keep reducing quantity and quality because they're too afraid to raise prices. This really disgusts me. This goes for both the US and Japan, can't speak for other countries.

If it's not profitable, raise the price...and wages. Or allow overseas goods into the market. If only there was an intelligent Finance minister.

He bought the franchise, and should have investigated it thoroughly before the purchase.

I needed an HDMI to AV converter for an old computer I wanted to play on my TV.

I went to 2 major stores near where I live. Both priced the converter just below 8000 yen

(yep, you read that right. My jaw dropped too) You can buy the same thing depending on the brand from under 1000 to about 1500 yen online and straight to your door.

Sounds like he needs to find a new job. Exploiting labor and potential karoshi are not the solution.

@zichi

Crazy isn't it? I know they have massive overheads and staff to pay, but they need to see that customers will always want a better (cheaper) deal.

I used to check those large stores first. Now I check online and if I can wait, I'll order from Amazon or the like.

I feel sorry for the convenience stores though. Tight budgets an all. I'd hate to loose the one local to me. But that day is coming.

Adapt or die. Darwinism 101.

I shop online myself a lot, but I don't think it affects convenience stores much. Their problem is oversaturation, i.e., there are too many of them. The guy can't afford to pay people 1400 yen an hour for the night shift because his overnight sales are being hit by "the competition down the street". As I pointed out, the markup on many things in convenience stores is already very high.

I'm normally all for the little man and entrepreneurs, but convenience store owners are franchisees who rank very low on the entrepreneur scale. I'd rather have a town with lots of cheap independent eateries, udon, curry rice, raamen etc., than many convenience stores selling the same factory-made bentos in plastic trays.

@Zichi - You also want to check Amazon pricing carefully. Very often you’ll find the same product with price variations up to ten times or more for the same product. I buy a lot of guitar parts for projects. For example, a set of tuners directly from China is around ¥1,200. However, the exact same product sold through a Japanese retailer on Amazon is around ¥5-6,000.

The problem with convenience stores is, they are on every second corner. It takes me 13 minutes to walk from my home to the station. I pass seven convenience stores on the way. I live in the suburbs in a semi-rural area, but the convenience stores are everywhere. On the other hand, some areas of the city that are extremely built up and residential only have a handful of convenience stores in a certain area. I work in central Tokyo and the convenience store nearest my work is a gold mine. It is the only one for at least a kilometer radius and is always busy. They have the largest collection of bentos I have ever seen in a 7/11 and they sell out every day.

@zichi

Convenience stores like in isolated places with little over night demand should just reduce their opening hours and close at midnight.

Good point that I never thought of.

I don't think I have ever used one after midnight. It's good to know they are there but if they went back to the original times as the name suggests...7/11

I'd get by.

They should close at night if the can't afford to staff them at that time. Can't get many customers at night neither.

That is the free market economy, if they can not compete some will fall by the way side until demand matches supply.

Yep the guy should have done more market research before buying the business.

Small local shops can not compete with large supermarkets on price and increasingly the supermarkets can't compete with online. They have to differentiate or die. Provide a unique service that your customers want.

These 'zombie' businesses are also a large part of what is driving the labour shortage. They used to be profitable back in the day, but now they just barely breaking even. They hobble along in hopes that their competitors will go bankrupt first. They need a full compliment of staff but have no to profits to pay them competitive wages. It will only get worse as the population declines and we find ourselves with excess capacity in every industry. Japan probably needs to adopt an aggressive de-growth strategy to encourage many of these businesses to either close or merge with their competitors.

In a few years time the shotengai will all be boarded up and the only sound of commerce will be the autodrones overhead delivering us our hydro-pizzas whilst we gorge on Holoflix on our plasmasofas etc