Japan Convenience Store Sales:

 https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210120/p2g/00m/0bu/100000c 

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Sales at Japanese convenience stores of seven major operators fell in 2020 for the first time on a year-on-year basis due to fewer customers in office and tourist areas amid the coronavirus pandemic, an industry body said Wednesday.

Their same-store sales fell 4.5 percent from 2019 to 10.66 trillion yen ($103 billion), according to the Japan Franchise Association, which began making such data available in 2005.

Total sales including those at newly opened stores in 2020 fell 4.7 percent to 10.16 trillion yen, logging the first decline in three years, according to the association.

Ideas:

The decrease in Japanese convenience stores sales is not unexpected, as many company workers/customers worked from home or other locations beside their work place.

And of course a decrease in tourist areas, for both domestic and kaijin or foreign tourists was also not unexpected.

When there is a 98+ percent decrease in foreign tourist it is going to reduce sales in all areas, not just the department stores that foreign tourists might frequent.

But of course the biggest drop in customers would be in the areas where they would normally work if many were required to work from home or other places.

Article:

The number of convenience stores totaled 55,924 at the end of 2020, increasing for the first time in two years, it said.

After January and February last year, sales at all stores were lower than those of the 10 months a year before due to the pandemic.

Especially, sales sank more than 10 percent after Japan's first declaration of a state emergency over the virus, under which people were requested to refrain from nonessential outings and restaurant owners were asked to shorten opening hours.

Ideas:

Most likely the increase in convenience stores might be linked to some persons who retired from their company job, but wanted  or needed to keep working.

Also the barrier for entry into the convenience store market is low, even though the relationship between the company and the franchisee might not be the best relationship  as some company place some unreasonable demands on the franchisee.

Such the purchasing of more products than they need, to unreasonable costs of some products, the low profit margin they have manage, and the demand by some companies for the franchisees to stay open 24 hours even when there are no customers and they don't make any profit during that time, and for some the lack of manpower willing to work the late hours.

Article:

Some convenience stores in tourist areas saw a pickup in sales after the government began a subsidy campaign aimed at promoting domestic tourism in July. But the year-on-year decline deepened again in tandem with a resurgence in the number of infections across the country.

Customer visits in 2020 on an all-store basis fell 10.2 percent to 15.92 billion, marking the sharpest fall ever.

In December alone, all-store sales totaled 937.87 billion yen, down 3.3 percent from a year earlier, with the number of customers falling 9.9 percent to 1.33 billion.

Ideas:

An increase during the subsidy campaign is good as the news reported over and over, the "Go to Travel" campaign, while maybe a good strategy to stimulate sales and demand, the timing was probably not the best idea.

But how knew there would be a surge in the virus situation.

As such while a very good idea, it might have actually made things worse, as Japan at the time, seemed to see the beginning of the virus situation leveling off.

A 10.2 percent decrease in overall customers could have been worse, as maybe some customers might have gone to either supermarkets and or convenience stores to get takeout food instead of going to crowded restaurants.