There's some important organizational differences: Stores in Japan are almost entirely franchisee-operated, while stores in the US are more-or-less split 50% on being franchises or corpo.
It's hard to draw conclusions when they're shaped so differently.
But I can say this: Speedway is a large US chain of gas station/convenience stores, with ~2,800 locations (all of them corpo). They varied a lot; some had hot made-to-order food, some others were limited to roller dogs and baked, frozen pizza that was in many ways indistinguishable from cardboard.
There has never been a time when Speedway was awesome, but there have been times when it was acceptable. It was usually better in the suburbs, and worse in the cities (I've seen some weird shit happen at Speedway stores in cities, but they generally kept up with the chaos).
Overall, I'd give 5/10 -- it was often convenient and generally open 24/7, but at all times any of them could have used a lot of very obvious improvement.
5 years ago, 7/11 bought Speedway. They've subsequently managed to allow it to become even worse. Things are dirty, disorganized, clearly lacking any direction other than that which leads towards dilapidation, and the staff just doesn't appear to care about any of it.
Under 7/11's ownership, my buying habits have shifted from "Hey, there's a Speedway. Let's stop in and get a soda or some coffee, or maybe a sandwich" to "Oh look, it's a Speedway. Let's keep moving."
Their accomplishments here are very impressive.
The distribution network even shows up in maps. There will be clusters of 7/11 in Japanese cities which is more efficient than spreading them equally.
Is that sector ripe for consolidation?
coincidence?
He can be proud of the legacy he built, which is something many American founders cannot say with a straight face.
Rest in power sir.
During the rest of my week and a half there, I saw plenty of other ATMs that appeared identical to the ones in the train station that didn't work for me.
I thought so, too, and perhaps it's just bad luck, but I was at Tokyo Station a few months ago, and I wasn't able to withdraw cash from Mizuho Bank's -- one of the largest retail bank in Japan -- ATM from my US debit card. I ended up walking (getting lost for) ~10 minutes to a Seven Bank ATM, and withdrew cash there without issue. So YMMV.
ATMs from the major banks (SMBC, Mizuho, Yuucho, etc.) are still extremely picky about supporting US cards. Most will do it... for an egregious fee.
Kombini ATMs are better about this, but 7Bank ATMs remain the gold standard with no fees outside of whatever the bank itself charges. LawsonBank is OK, but few/far between. Enet (at a lot of kombinis) are terrible.
Disclaimer: Former Visa, current PayPay employee
I haven't been there in over a decade, so I believe you.
They just end up rewarded after doing shady tricks more often. Whereas in any other country being too devious too often is fatal.
I guess the archetypal example on HN would be Microsoft or Oracle.
The market is adjusting apparently given the Mangione case and the Kimberly-Clark distribution center fire.
Please don't use an obituary to make a nationalistic swipe on HN.
I'm American.
Please don't tone police me, especially if you're going to call me something I'm most certainly not, especially since eighteen other people apparently found my comment useful.
Realistically Japan is very close to being a second tier economy. It's quite plausible that Croatia and Latvia will pass them on GDP per capita over the next decade. 7-11 Japan would be relatively inexpensive for the citizens of any affluent nation, because Japan is so much poorer than it used to be.
You’ll see adults with children sometimes at Whole Foods, which is nice, but unattended children not so much.
But that's down to larger cultural differences. Japanese schoolchildren probably get less supervision overall than their US counterparts.
It's the honeymoon effect I guess.
Yes! There are better options available if I want to sit down for a meal, or even just wait for a couple of minutes for someone to fry me a piece of chicken to order.
That's _not the point_! Both the SEJ meals, and FamiChiki, are _fantastic_ for what they are — available in literally tens of thousands of locations across the country, and available _instantly_, 24/7.
They're both _not that special_ if you compare them to a "real" restaurant (though, and I will die on this hill, FamiChiki is hands-down better than a good ~80% of chicken I would get in a restaurant in my home country; but that's a somewhat different conversation).
But if you compare them with convenience store meals available elsewhere in the world (especially in the broadly understood West), they still _are_ pretty damn special.
(And don't get me started on the 7-11 frozen pizzas from Da Isa. Those, reheated in a Balmuda also clear a good 75% of "real" pizzerias back home, and not because pizzerias in Berlin or Warsaw are particularly bad!)
[0] https://www.retailnews.dk/article/view/1178986/6000_kunder_o... (Danish)
I was living in Japan around 2008 and remember buying concert tickets and picking them up a conbini after purchasing online. I don't remember whether it was a 7 Eleven or Lawsons, but maybe it was a result of this.
> Suzuki was always known for being hard on staff
and I'm left wondering: Why is any of this interesting to someone who is not in Mr. Suzuki's family or circle of friends?
Here is decent video on Youtube that goes into the history of the company, and why 7-11s are so different in the US and Japan (tldr: it's the core culture/infrastructure differences):
