Konbini culture: What does a convenience store do?
Preface: Is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk the future of work? See Nancy Folbre HERE
I. What are konbini?
A. What goods and services do they provide?
- Selling a wide range of meals, snacks and sweets (especially obento and onigiri); broad selection of hot and cold drinks, non-alcoholic and alcoholic; cigarettes, body care products, cosmetics, diapers, batteries, blank CDs and stationary supplies, umbrellas, newspapers, magazines and comics, a few clothing items
- Selling services like ATM, copier/fax, digital camera printer, ticket reservations, bill payments, delivery services, dry cleaning, catalog shopping
- Providing social services: a well-lit intersection; recycling; spouse abuse refuges; food for the homeless; earthquake relief centers; etc.
B. History: The first chain convenience store in 1927 in Dallas; the first konbini in Japan in 1974
C. Current numbers: 150,000 in US; 50,000 in Japan
C. Standardized to 100 square meters, offering 2,500 products; franchise system in Japan; 24/7 hours; 2-5 employees per shift, 2-4 registers; multiple daily deliveries; sophisticated computer sales/inventory monitoring;
II. Service
A. The transition from mainstream to post-mainstream Japan has included the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy
B. Four components of an economy’s “service” sector
- retail consumer services like food (restaurants –> fast food franchises), clothing/household (department stores –> big box/malls/convenience stores)
- financial services (banks and brokers) –> financializing and securitizing
- “culture industries” producing movies, TV, music, fashion, books, magazines, manga, anime
- knowledge industries (software development/apps, consulting, legal expertise, online services and social networking)
C. The changing retail service-scape
- In the US: “Main Streets” of small specialty family-owned retail shops and large corporate department stores –> the “strip” of gas stations, fast food and supermarkets on urban –> shopping malls –> supermalls and big box stores
- In Japan: A shōtengai (“shopping street”) of family-owned businesses and “main streets” (Ginza-dori) of large urban department stores –> supermarkets, fast food chains (Colonel Saunders, McDonald’s), vending machines, konbini, 100-yen stores (and malls)
D. The power of local Merchants Association (caps on big stores; konbini chains recruited Mom & Pop pairs from retail stores)
III. Convenience
A. The principles of McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control (George Ritzer)
B. What makes konbini convenient? Ease of access—and cheap prices, product/service selection, new products, freshness
C. “Service with a smile”? From the ‘sticky’ personal relationships of small shops and the guest formality of department stores to the anonymous friendliness of konbini
IV. Globalization
A. What is globalization?
- Is it new? How is it different from internationalization?
- Does globalization create sameness or does it create new differences?
- If difference, are these different differences or variations on a theme, points along a single measuring stick?
B. Global retail pioneers–and “pioneer models”: McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Starbucks and konbini (Gavin Whitelaw)
V. A tour of a Tokyo Daily Yamazaki konbini by Gavin Whitelaw