A few months ago I had one or two posts about some convenience stores in the area closing. This was quite surprising in it's own right, cause Taipei is a city where there are at least two convenience stores on every block (this is honestly a conservative guess, as sometimes there are three or more on each block). Which always begs the question how can they all survive? So seeing some close I guess answers that they all can't.
Well to fill the void in my immediate area, a new convenience store opened up. During it's construction I could see how big they were making it, which kind of worried me as it seemed a bit bad planning to go so big in an area where similar stores have failed. But eventually I found out that I couldn't have been more wrong, and it being big is what has made it a success.
As you can see from the picture, they have a small eating area in the store as well as some tables and chairs outside. This has benefited the store greatly as these tables are normally full of people most hours day or night. It's not just people eating, but I've noticed many people just use this as a meeting place to go over business, study, or just chat.
In the end, even though this is one small store in one small neighborhood, I think this speaks well for the future of Taiwanese businesses. In Taiwan the economic theory for decades has been to have all like minded stores in the same area. So you have your "camera street" which is an area full of maybe 30 different stores that just sell cameras. Or you have your "furniture street" which is a similar thing for just furniture stores. With there really being no difference between the stores, with even prices and service (or rather lack there of) being the same, it's hard to see how they can all continue to stay in business going forward.
Well I think this one convenience store has solved this problem. If you want to succeed in the future, you have to offer customers something they can't get in/from your competitor's stores. Let's hope their success doesn't go unnoticed.
