Shanghai Street View: Love of Convenience 沪经动向：钟爱便利

If there’s one thing that Shanghai people love, it’s convenience. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the city’s growing love affair with convenience stores, which have multiplied like weeds in the last few years. As a longtime China resident, I can say without hesitation that Shanghai has easily become the Chinese epicenter for expansion by the world’s top convenience store chains. Those chains, including FamilyMart, Lawson and 7-Eleven, are quickly crowding out a host of colorful but less slick local names in what often feels more like an infestation as hundreds of new stores pop up in nearly any location imagineable.

As little as 5 or 6 years ago, local names like Buddies, Kedi and All Days were local staples in Shanghai’s convenience store scene, providing an easy place to pay my electric bill or pick up a quick ice cream or soft drink to quench a passing craving or thirst. But those country cousins are quickly being crowded out by a sudden mass influx of FamilyMart, Lawson and 7-Eleven stores. Interestingly, all 3 of these slick new chains have Japanese roots of some kind, with Family Mart and Lawson both owned and operated by Japanese companies. 7-Eleven is a US firm, but counts a Japanese company as its controlling stakeholder.

The Japanese connection is intriguing and a behind-the-scenes detail, but the rapid spread of all 3 chains in the city is difficult to miss. From my home in the Hongkou district, I can choose between 2 FamilyMarts, a Lawson and a 7-Eleven, as well as an All Days and another convenience store operated by local food giant Bright Food all within 5 minute walking distance. For anyone too lazy to tally the total, that means there are 6 convenience stores for me to choose from in easy walking distance, and I don’t even live in a very commercial area.

The big picture numbers are even more compelling. FamilyMart, recognizable by its blue and green banners and steaming pots of meatballs at its checkout counters, now boasts more than 1,000 stores in China, with around 70 percent of those in Shanghai. Lawson is second with more than 300 shops in the city, accounting for more than 80 percent of its total in China. 7-Eleven is a relative latecomer to the market, but still has managed to open 150 stores in the city since its entry in 2009.

The current numbers may look impressive, but all 3 chains say their work in Shanghai has just begun. The most ambitious is FamilyMart, which aims to have 8,000 stores in all of China by 2020, with a big number of those in Shanghai. I have to admit that I feel a bit sorry for the local chains like Buddies and Kedi, which pioneered the convenience store concept in a city that is a natural host for such small shops due to its crowded European layout and love of convenience and foreign concepts. But at the same time, I’ll also admit that I regularly shop at the foreign chains, which have more offerings and are cleaner and brighter than their Chinese cousins that I suspect are destined for extinction in the next few years.

Having largely conquered their domestic rivals, the foreign chains are now turning to a wide range of slick tricks in a bid to outdo one another, offering up all kinds of hot food, lunch counters and even wi-fi. In one of the more creative moves so far, Lawson in June opened its first-ever store based on the popular “Ultraman” TV series, known local as “Aoteman“, in the Zhongshang Park area.

I paid a visit to the store, and was greeted by an “Ultraman” experience that included life-sized figures to greet me at the door, along with shelves of “Ultraman” merchandise throughout the store. And as an added draw for parents, the store even hosts weekend play sessions for children with people dressed in “Ultraman” costumes in a second-floor room.

I’ll admit that this themed store concept was a bit over-the-top, even though I admire Lawson for its creativity. I fully expect this colonization by foreign operators to continue in the years ahead, bringing a new slickness to this city that loves its convenience. At the same time, it will also mark the end of an era for the hometown stores, as well as the likely end of traditional even older traditional wooden stalls that have been part of Shanghai’s cityscape for much of the last 50 years.