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How Japanese 7-Eleven’s Became The Best
Mar 27, 2025
When it comes to doing it right, Japan doesn't mess around. Check out our course on Tokyo https://www.brighttrip.com/courses?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=how-japanese-7-elevens-became-the-best Convenience stores are a great place to grab a quick snack on the go, but out in the West they don't always have the best reputation. Head east and you'll discover this isn't the case. From full meals to high quality fresh foods, Driaan talks us through the history about how 7-Eleven in Japan has become the king of convenience. Leave a comment with any questions you have and we’ll make sure to include it in a future video. Make sure to subscribe to the channel to learn how to travel smarter. ===== FOLLOW ON SOCIAL ===== Bright Trip Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/brighttrip.com/signup-form Bright Trip on IG: https://www.instagram.com/bright.trip/ Bright Trip on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/brighttriptravel/ Bright Trip on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrightTripTeam Bright Trip on Twitter: https://twitter.com/trip_bright ===== ABOUT BRIGHT TRIP ===== Bright Trip creates video-based travel courses to help you travel smarter. From our location courses that visually demystify places like Tokyo, London, Costa Rica, or Cape Town to our skills courses that cover how to travel solo, with kids, or how to document your travels more effectively and efficiently - each course is created by real travelers, like you, and aims to create a community of curious travelers that are eager to travel smarter.
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0:00
If you don't live somewhere like Japan, you might think of convenience stores as this
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A place where you can maybe find a few candy bars, soda or gross hot dogs
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But in Japan and the countries around it, convenience stores are in a league of their own
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Strange things are afoot in the Circle K. On my trip to Taiwan, my first experience inside of 7-Eleven was wonderful and delicious
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The amount of tasty snacks that I'd never seen before in my life was dizzying
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The store was keen and inviting and I had my first taste of onigiri, tea eggs and papaya milk
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I instantly became a fan. And I'm not alone. Konbini have a cult following all over the world
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with some people rating 7-Eleven as Japan's best restaurant. There's just something so fun about going to 7-Eleven in Asia
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Japanese konbini stores do have sandwiches and crisps, but they also have full aisles of alcohol and fully cooked meals and salads
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and everything you could possibly imagine. It's also a safe place that I think Americans understand something that they are familiar with
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but completely unfamiliar with as soon as they walk into it. But how do you go from this
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That is nasty. That is like the cheese that you throw at the cats. To this
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Here at Bride Trip, we've decided that we need to get to the bottom of this. So we reached out to you guys for help
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And with your help, I've come up with a few theories as to why. you might have heard of japan's post-war miracle if not you can check our video on the subject
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here in the 1970s japan had been riding 20 years of economic growth but where some areas of society
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had progressed rapidly grocery shopping had stayed pretty much the same people were doing most of
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their grocery shopping from small mom-and-pop style local markets buying the goods on a daily
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basis because most people didn't have space in their kitchens for refrigerators. The Japanese
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government was also trying to protect this infrastructure of small local markets by imposing
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restrictions on newer forms of retail, department stores and supermarkets. So you had all these
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Japanese entrepreneurs who were trying to come up with new innovative business models in a
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business environment that was influenced by culture and tradition. In 1971, this guy
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Toshifumi Suzuki was going to the States on a consistent basis, trying to secure the Denny's
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trade name for his company, Ito Yokado. While road tripping in the land of the free, Suzuki fell in
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love with another US brand, 7-Eleven. At that stage, nothing like 7-Eleven had existed in Japan yet
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and Suzuki was sure that it would be a hit. He approached the owners of 7-Eleven
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Southland Corporation and asked them what your secret They replied the secrets you desire are in here The 7 operation manual We will give you this power if you agree to our wager
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to open 1,200 stores in eight years and a 0.6% gross profit royalty fee
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The stakes were high, but Suzuki was convinced. He made the deal, went back to Japan
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assembled a launch team, had manual translated and then found that it was completely underwhelming
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The manual was mostly filled with mundane information like how to run a cash register or how to train employees
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And it lacked the secret sauce he craved like how to run a distribution network
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or how to choose a store location. But Suzuki was undaunted. In May 1974, he converted a liquor store
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into Japan's first 7-Eleven and it was an instant hit. Within the first day, he was already doubling the sales
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of the liquor store that was there before. But because of the higher running costs of a convenience store
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and because of the royalties he owed to the US, he wasn't actually making that much of a profit
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But instead of giving up, Suzuki leaned into these limitations to refine the convenience store model
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He tweaked stuff like stock selection and supply chain management and he pushed to implement new technologies
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that would bring down costs as much as possible. All of this innovation and hard work resulted in 7-Eleven
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becoming extremely successful in Japan. The new convenience store model fitted perfectly into a society
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that was used to shopping at local markets and Konbini became a phenomenon unique to Japan
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But while business was booming in Japan, things weren't going so well in the US
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In the late 80s, this guy, Samuel Belsberg, was threatening to do a hostile takeover of Southland Corporation
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Hostile takeovers were kind of a thing in the 80s. This freaked out the owners of Southland Corporation so much
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that they decided to buy out all the stocks in their own company using borrowed money
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This is a move called a leveraged buyout or LBO by finance types
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I had to Google this. They managed to get all their stocks back, but they also managed to get
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more than $4 billion in debt. This was made worse when the stock market crashed in 1987
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Around the world, stock markets fell faster than a skydiver without a parachute
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Also, most gas stations in the US started opening their own convenience stores
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and 7-Eleven just couldn't keep up with the competition. In 1989, Southland Corporation reached out to Ito Yokodo
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and asked them to buy the 58 7-Elevens that were in Hawaii. After looking at their performance, Suzuki knew he could improve it
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so he agreed to the deal, and he used his newfound konbini expertise to turn the Hawaiian 7 into profitable businesses This is why 7 in Hawaii are also quite good Eventually in 1991 Southland Corporation came up with an idea They would file for bankruptcy so that Ito Yokodo could buy them
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out completely. Allegedly, one of the prerequisites to this transaction was that Southland Corporation
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would have to listen and learn from 7-Eleven Japan. Ito Yokodo ended up buying 70% of Southland
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corporation. And so 7-Eleven became Japanese. Today 7-Eleven is just one of the many konbini
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brands fighting for neighborhood dominance and its influence has spilled over into the rest of
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Asia. Often you'll find multiple convenience stores on the same street block, sometimes even
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from the same brand. For the traveler these konbini offer a great place to grab a meal on the go but
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they also give you an opportunity to try something that you might have never had before. For example
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Most stores will have warm food at the cash register. There are fried chickens, sausages
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Pao buns. Pao buns are so good. Noodles. Of course, lots of noodles
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Japanese oben to. My favorite is gyudon. The seasonal items are always really fun
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It just kind of takes over Twitter. In winter, you can expect to see oden
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You can get a lot of ingredients of your choice in a soy and dashi broth
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It's a good way to warm up in a cold winter night. Toasties
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Little square sandwiches that you can buy. A variety of sweet and savory flavors
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They would toast them for you right there behind the counter. And if you're lucky, you can see Japanese local or craft beers
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My favorite. Yeah, that was a stone. Try anything that catches your eye because more than likely it's going to be good
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Like there's so much variety of snacks. walk into the store and try something you never thought you'd want to try
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You never know. That's the stuff. So yeah, if you're looking for something to eat, you've come to the right place
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But there's more to Konbini than just snacks. Konbini have evolved from being a place where you can get all your essentials
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to a place where you can do all your essential life admin things
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This means that Konbini can act as a great travel base camp if you needed to
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You can pay for your bills in convenience stores. You can buy tickets to concerts or museums
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One example is the Ghibli Art Museums. You can only buy in Lawson
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Buy plane tickets. You pay for a phone plan while you're there. Banking through ATMs
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You've got photocopying. You've got postage. Okay, so Asian convenience stores are well-run
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have great food, and can act as a great travel base camp But I think there one more reason why there this strange infatuation with them The seats The fact that you can sit down turns these grocery stores from a place to shop to a place
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where you can just live life. And because they're so quiet, it makes for quite a nice environment to relax midway through
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the working day. Sometimes you walk in there and there's all sorts of people in there and people are chit
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chatting and meeting and discussing snacks with trends to buy, grabbing beers, sitting out front
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hanging out. You might end up sitting down with a bunch of people you didn't know and eating snacks
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and having drinks together. It's a cross-section of the local community mixing with visitors and
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travelers and tourists who are coming to their town. So I was a student in Japan. In the night
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we played games or we drank a little bit and we got hungry. We just put on a coat, walked about
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five minutes to the closest convenience store there are we have this very good cheesecake
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7-eleven Japan makes good cheesecake in the middle of the night I just arrived I was clearly very
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sleep deprived and this lovely Japanese worker walked me around the convenience store picked up
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some food and went and then I said okay sleep and uh and he pointed to a store that was in the
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distance and I went I was like what I don't know and he walked me out of the shop halfway down the
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road and pointed to a building which turned out to be kind of like an inn and I was just completely
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dumbfounded by the fact that he was so polite and so nice and willing to help me and also left his
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shop. I just have really nice memories from 7-Eleven which again is so funny because at home
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I don't have any memories from 7-Eleven. So if you're planning a trip to Japan
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make sure to prepare your gut for the wonder that is the Asian convenience store
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And be sure to prepare your brain for the wonder that is Tokyo by taking a course with BrightTrip
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On brighttrip.com, we've got a host of courses available, including one called Tokyo Demystified
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This course is made by travel and video legends Johnny and Iz Harris
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So it comes with beautiful visuals and lots of cool maps. Thank you so much for watching, guys
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Hopefully, I've inspired you guys to go eat some seaweed samosas in Japan. And thank you so much to these people
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for helping me make this video. Until next time, bye. So it's your first time in Japan
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and you're at your first konbini. Here are three phrases I think you should know
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Hirashai-mase, which means welcome. The second phrase is arigato or arigato gozaimasu
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which is thank you. And the third is fukuro irimasuka, which is would you like a bag so hopefully those phrases help
#Convenience Stores
#Fast Food
#Food
#Food & Grocery Delivery
#Food Service
#Tourist Destinations