After returning from a recent trip to Tokyo, friends were eager to hear about any culinary adventures I might have had. “Did you eat a lot of sushi?” They wanted to know. “Well, some,” I’d respond, “Mostly from 7-Eleven.”
That response tended to make people pause. The thing is, Japanese convenience stores (“combini”) are pretty fantastic. Although they are recognizably similar to their American counterparts, with snacks, drinks, and toiletries, there is a critical difference in the high-level job-to-be-done that the stores address.
In the United States, convenience stores seem to see themselves as solving a fundamental job-to-be-done like “Provide access to a mini-grocery store when the real grocery store is far away.” Under this rubric, convenience stores offer products like chips, tuna, and milk.
The overarching meta-job of a combini, however, is more like “Make inconvenient tasks more convenient.” Under this theme, combinis sell delicious and cheap ready-to-go bento meals and mini-meals. They’re also the place to go to pay utility bills, buy concert tickets, or drop off luggage to be taken to the airport.
This strategy has proved extremely successful. 7-Eleven is actually Japan’s No. 1 food retailer and most profitable retailer overall, and the Japanese branch now owns its American parent.
A lesson here is that even companies that appear superficially similar to each other may be aimed at fundamentally different jobs targets, which dictate the strategic choices they make. The “make the inconvenient convenient” job has a lot of headroom to grow; plenty of things in life are inconvenient. This meta-job provides a platform for all manner of profitable offerings that would seem out of place in an American convenience store.
On the other hand, the American meta-job of providing small grocery stores has pigeonholed the industry in a modern environment where access barriers to larger grocery stores are fairly low. Hopefully, American convenience store retailers can learn the lessons from their Japanese equivalents quickly — I could really go for some yakisoba.
