TOKYO – Japan’s convenience stores are changing with the nation’s demographics, shedding their image as places for young shoppers keen on fast food, concert tickets and comic books, and increasingly catering to older clientele, according to a report in Japan Times.
As the country’s population ages and lifespans increase, Japan’s omnipresent convenience stores are revising their offerings to better suit the tastes and needs of seniors with products and services like home delivery, healthy bento boxed meals and in-store pharmacies. Some stores are even setting up elderly care support counters, complete with seating and even karaoke.
According to the news report, Japanese convenience giant Lawson recently opened its first outlet with a nursing care consultation desk and plans to launch at least one more in the next few months. The new outlet features managers and advisers available for consultation all day, every day of the week.
The move to cater to this new demographic comes as the country experiences an overall aging of its population. Japan Times cites recent statistics from Seven & i Holdings Co. showing that customers 50 or older, who represented only 9% of all customers in 1989, rose to 30% in 2013. In that same period, people aged 29 and younger accounted for 63% of daily customers at 7-Eleven stores, declining to about 29% in 2013.
Convenience stores specifically targeting the elderly are changing the image of the sector as a testing ground for marketing to teenagers. And while the Lawson outlet may be an extreme example and experimental in nature, others in the industry, while not going that far, have quietly shifted their marketing tack in recent years to focus further on seniors.
Operators are increasingly changing their food lineups to appeal to older shoppers. They seek, for example, quality, safe products, including higher-end foodstuffs, rather than the cheap, filling bento meals preferred by young shoppers.
A notable change is their bento and other ready-to eat foods offered under their respective house brands, where the companies are competing with each other to offer healthy ingredients and those that are either locally sourced or from a renowned region.
Masayuki Kubota, chief strategist at Rakuten Securities Economic Research Institute, told Japan Times that the main focus of convenience stores is not the elderly per se, but the overall shift from young to older shoppers, which is reflected in the food offer. “Until maybe a decade ago, the image of convenience stores was of a place where young people away from home could pick up food of their preference, like fast food restaurants,” Kubota told the news source. “At that point, strategies targeting males in their 20s was important. … But now female customers in their 40s and 50s are increasing.”
FamilyMart, for instance, acquired Senior Life Create Co. and launched a home delivery service in December 2012, taking advantage of the latter’s Takuhai Cook 123 bento meal delivery for aged residents.
FamilyMart is also experimenting with over 30 combination outlets that share space with drug stores through a tie-up with Saitama Prefecture-based Drug Ace and Osaka’s Higuchi Yakkyoku drug store chains.