Convenience Stores in Japan Adding Bookstore Sections

September 27, 2018

Tokyo- Convenience store chains in Japan are making serious efforts to open shops incorporating bookstore sections or expand the lineups of books at their outlets.

With bookstores in rural areas closing one after another due to increased competition from online shopping and a lack of successors, convenience stores aim to attract a new breed of customers and also boost demand for food and beverages among customers who pick up books.

The new types of stores are providing a breath of fresh air to a saturated market of ubiquitous convenience stores and helping to push up sales at such stores.

At a FamilyMart store that opened in Ogi, Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan, in August, rows of bookshelves occupy a space next to an ordinary shopping area.

In an eat-in section, customers can spend time reading books they buy at the store, while eating or drinking.

The outlet is the first of its kind launched under a comprehensive business partnership contract with major book brokerage company Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Inc., which has companies such as Sekibunkan Bookstore Co. in its group.

"Bookstores are rooted in communities and have strong affinity with convenience stores," said an official of FamilyMart Co., a subsidiary of Familymart Uny Holdings Co..

FamilyMart aims to open many more such combined stores, mainly by renovating existing bookstores to meet local demand.

Lawson Inc. , working with major bookstore Bunkyodo, operates 10 convenience store-bookstore hybrids.

"Per-customer spending (excluding books) is 100 yen higher on average" than at conventional convenience stores, a Lawson official said.

Opening hybrid stores is not easy, chiefly due to the need to acquire relatively large plots of land, however.

Therefore, Lawson has set up bookshelves to accompany standard magazine racks at existing convenience stores and plans to increase the number of such stores to 4,000 by February 2019 from the current total of some 3,000.

Seven-Eleven Japan Co. takes orders for magazines and reserves them for pickup by customers. Sales are brisk for gardening and other specialist magazines that are not readily available outside major bookstores.

According to a research company, the number of bookstores in Japan stood at about 12,000 as of May 2018, down 44 pct from 2000. A survey conducted last year by major book broker Tohan Corp. showed that more than 20 pct of all cities, wards, towns and villages across Japan had no bookstore at all. Jiji Press