Signs of Our Times? Japanese Stores Are Increasingly Convenient for Seniors
Dickinson Law Professor Laurel Terry sent me a timely link to an NPR story about Japanese convenience stores. I was already thinking about how retail shopping has changed over the years. For example, on the corner of 7th Avenue and Indian School Road in Phoenix, there used to be a high-end Scandinavian furniture store. I’d only been in it once, and that was to use a gift certificate for what seemed like a huge amount of money at the time as a wedding present. My husband and I realized the most we could afford in the store was a wooden bowl. A very nice wooden bowl, mind you, but still, it was a wooden bowl.
Yesterday, as I passed that corner, I realized there was still a big, fancy sign out front, but the store is now a Goodwill franchise store.
So, with that change in mind, I enjoyed the NPR story, captioned Beyond Slurpees: Many Japanese MiniMarts Now Cater to Elders. From the written account:
Case in point is a Lawson convenience store in the city of Kawaguchi, north of Tokyo. It sells products that an American consumer would never find tucked between the aspirin and the candy bars. For example, there’s a whole rack of ready-to-heat meals in colorful pouches. They’re rated at levels from 1 to 5, based on how hard it is to chew what’s inside.
Or, as the store’s manager, Masahiko Terada, puts it, “the higher the level, the less need for you to chew. In the end it’s porridge.”
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This Lawson store in Kawaguchi is one of six in a special line called Care Lawson. The company plans to expand to 30 by early next year. And these Care Lawson stores have another special feature: staff like Mika Kojima.
She’s a nursing care manager and she’s stationed at this Lawson store. In fact the franchise owner of this store is actually a nursing services company. Anyone who comes in can ask for Kojima’s help. For example, she’ll go to an older client’s home to make sure it’s set up so they can live there safely. And she’ll connect families with adult day care services.
Convenience stories should be just that, convenient, right? With adults over age-65 making up nearly 27 percent of Japan’s population, it just makes sense for retailers to provide customer-specific merchandise that is easily accessible, especially for people who might prefer to avoid large supermarkets. The Lawson chain also offers home deliveries.
The story made me wonder more about Lawson. How was it that the Japanese chain came to have such a non-Japanese name? It turns out Lawson began back to 1939 in Ohio, in the United States, where J. J. Lawson ran a dairy milk store. “‘Mr. Lawson’s milk store’ was locally renowned for its fresh and delicious milk and many customers came to buy milk there every morning.” The first Lawson convenience store opened in Japan in 1975 and sold “party food,” very different from the model of today.