Convenience stores in Tsukuba

A source of information which I looked over tells that Tsukuba City has about 108 convenience stores. No.1 is Seven Eleven and the number is 47 stores. No.2 is FamilyMart and the number is 20 stores. No.3 is Lawson and the number is 11 stores. And more, Coco stores(8), Mini Stop(7), Sunkus(7), SaveOn(6) and Seico Mart(2). Seven Eleven has many stores as usual, but FamilyMart has much many stores than Lawson. The stores of FamilyMart are a few around University of Tsukuba, so I think the number of FamilyMart is a few.

In September 26th, 2011, an ordinance and budget were concluded which we can get our certificates of residence copy and certificates  of the legal registration of our official seal by using our Basic Resident Register cards at Seven Eleven. We can get from Kiosuku terminal unit from a.m.6:30 to p.m.11:00, and we'll have to pay a fee of one hundred and fifty yen for getting it. However, we need procedure at town hall beforehand. Incidentally, we can use this service in the whole country.

The payment by the hour of a part time job at Seven Eleven in Tsukuba City is about from 740yen to 1070yen. At Lawson is about from 700yen to 1000 yen. At FamilyMart is about from 820 yen to 1040 yen.

FamilyMart

FamilyMart is Japanese convenience store. The first store was opened in Sayama, Saitama in 1973. At first, FamilyMart is under the umbrella of Seiyu but now is under the umbrella of ITOCHU corporation. The headquarters is on the 17th floor of the Sunshine60 Building in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo. FamilyMart's official motto is "FamilyMart, Where You Are One of the Family." FamilyMart cooperated with am/pm in 2010 and absorbed it in 2011. am/pm expanded stores in Kanto Area, so FamilyMart could become to expand power in Kanto Area.

FamilyMart has stores in all prefectures of Japan and has number 1 share in Okinawa, Nagasaki, Kagoshima. FamilyMart is different from Seven Eleven, Lawson and so on at the point of "Japanese" convenience store, so expansion of sales is free and started to open stores in Asia in the early stage.

FamilyMart has own credit card named "Famima T-card"
 and we can use T-point card. The image color of FamilMart are blue and green, and brue expresses urbane, intellect, hope and liberty, and green expresses nature, fresh, young, clean.

At first, symbol of FamilyMart is "smile star and sun". The symbol was used by 1997. A melon pan whose motif is smile star and sun sold on 21th June, 2011.
The melody of FamilyMart(when we enter store) is EC5227WP melody sign made by Panasonic. The melody sign isn't for company so we can also buy it. In fact, some people use this chime for their house.

Lawson

The origin of Lawson is Milk Shop Lawson in Ohio state, America which was made by J.J.Lawson in1939. This is the source of Milk can of Lawson's logo. Milk of the shop became popular and started chain stores which sell daily necessities. Now, the company was absorbed so there is no Lawson in America.

In Japan, Daiei cooperated with the company in 1974 and established Daiei Lawson in the follow year. At first a store open in Toyonaka city, Osaka prefecture and started to open mainly in Kinki district. In September 1979 the official name was changed to Lawson Japan, Inc. Originally a joint venture between Japanese consumer retailing giant Daiei and U.S.-based Lawson Co., Lawson was a wholly owned subsidiary of Daiei until 2001, when Mitsubishi corporation became the main shareholder as Daiei's slide began.

Lawson is one of the top convenience store chains in Japan, second only to convenience franchise giant Seven Eleven. To date, Lawson operates in all 47 prefectures of Japan as well as in Shanghai, China. August 2011, Lawson opened their first store in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Lawson has many kinds of store, for example, Lawson satellite, Lawson store 100, Natural Lawson, Natural Lawson selection, Lawson plus, Lawson plus natural select, Lawson hybrid, Postal Lawson, Highway pit by LAWSON, Happy Lawson, LAWSON+toks.
Lawson has own point card named "Ponta card". T-point card used to use in Lawson.

Seven Eleven

The origin of Seven Eleven is America and the birth place is Oak Cliff in Texas state. Southland Ice which is forerunner of Seven Eleven started to open for sixteen hours everyday, and sold bread and milk in 1927. In the time, totem pole which stood in yard of store was mark to find store, so called "totem store". Southland Ice changed the name into Seven Eleven in 1946. Moreover Japanese Ito-Yokado Co.,Ltd. had license to open the store, and started to manage Seven Eleven in Japan in 1973. However, the business of American Seven Eleven became slack in 1980s, and Ito-Yokado purchased American Seven Eleven which had became collapse in 1991.

Seven Eleven started to open around the clock in Las Vegas and Dallas in 1963, and almost all of store open for twenty four hours now. The slogan of Japanese Seven Eleven is "Seven Eleven, iikibun", and that of America is "Thank Heaven, Seven Eleven". This corporation seems to like to rhyme.

Suzuki Toshihumi who was a member of Ito-Yokado did sales work suited Japan, and succeeded.
Seven Eleven does dominant strategy which is going to have branches in specific area, so some prefectures don't have stores of Seven Eleven. My friend said that "Aomori doesn't have Seven Eleven.", "Ishikawa started to have Seven Eleven a few years ago,." and so on... Seven Eleven has original electronic money system which is nanaco.

The symbol color of Seven Eleven is orange, green and red. Orange expresses the light of day, Green expresses oasis of desert and Red expresses evening.

Ranking

I will show you several kinds of convenience store ranking.

-Sales Ranking 2010- (million yen)

1st.Seven Eleven(2,784,997)

2nd.Lawson(1,666,136)

3rd.FamilyMart(1,365,496)

4th.CircleK Sunkus(1,051,088)

5th.Ministop(300,442)

(http://facter.net/)

-Faborite Ranking 2009-

1st.Seven Eleven

2nd.FamilyMart
3rd.Lawson

4th.CircleK Sunkus

5th.Ministop

(http://getnews.jp/archives/15676)

-Number Ranking 2011(May)-

1st.Seven Eleven(13,233)

2nd.Lawson(9,982)

3rd.FamilyMart(8,281)
4th.CircleK Sunkus(6,257)
5th.Ministop(1,978)
(http://blog.livedoor.jp/tenmethods/archives/51806353.html)

I was surprised that FamilyMart is the second most popular convenience store, but sales is not No.2. I wonder if people don't buy at a store though they like the store. My faborite convenience store is FamilyMart, so I want FamilyMart to win all rankings.

-Faborite Rice Ball Ranking 2011.12.15-

1st.boiled rice mixed with chicken and vegetables(Seven Eleven)

2nd.baked rice ball with soy sause of sea tangle flavor(CircleK Sunkus)

3rd.yakiniku of Korean flavor in rice ball(Seven Eleven)

(http://mognavi.jp/ranking/31/2)

-Faborite Bread Ranking 2011.12.15-

1st.whipped cream and custard cream in danish(Seven Eleven)

2nd.wet banana in muffin(Lawson)

3rd.melonpan(CircleK Sunkus)

(http://mognavi.jp/ranking/31/2)

I want FamilyMart to rank in the rankings. The 4th and 5th of bread ranking are commodities of FamilyMart, but the 4th and 5th of rice ball ranking are commodities of Seven Eleven. I think that Seven Eleven is strong.

History

The birthplace of convenience store is America, and "Southland Ice" is the first convenience store. Southland Ice was selling ice at first and gradually would be to sell food and daily necessities everyday. Southland Ice was named "Seven Eleven" later after that the business hours of that is 7 a.m.-11 p.m. In Japan, the first convenience store is said that "Mammy" which was established in 1969. Next, "Coco Store" was in 1971, "Seico Mart" was in 1971, "FamilyMart" was in 1973, "Seven Eleven" was in 1974 and "Daiei Lowson" was in 1975.

Precisely, convenience store is retail shop which does business for hours all the year round, is small shop and sells mainly food and daily necessities. The abbreviated desinations of convenience store are "konbini" and "CVS", and were "konbi" and "supermarket opened until late at night" by 1980s.

Most of convenience stores are managed as chain store by major companies. FamilyMart is the subsidiary company of Seiyu, Seven Eleven is Itoyokado, Lawson is Daiei, Circle K is Uni and Mini Stop is Aeon. However, Daily-Yamazaki and Sunkus are not subsidiary companies of supermarket and department store, and the former is that of Yamazakipan and the latter is independently.

Coco store at Fujiyamadai of Kasugai is said to be origin of Japanese convenience store. The Coco store opened in July 11th, 1971.Kasugai city is in Aichi prefecture. This year is 40th commemoration. I think that it is good to visite the place if you have time.