Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "Taiwan's Ultra-Convenient Convenience Stores" video.

  1. Very interesting video on convenience stores in Taiwan. I have followed the development of convenience stores in the Chinese mainland since the 90s, when they first started popping up. The first successful chains were 7-Eleven and Lawson (Japanese), then Family Mart. Chinese state owned retail giants also wanted in on the business, but apparently it's not that easy to find the right recipe, and they were not as popular as the foreign imports. The state came to the aid: They issued a regulation that said that no new convenience store could open within a few hundred meters of another. This limited the total number of stores one could open. This new regulation was then strictly enforced for foreign chains, but unenforced for the state-owned chains. They just started opening everywhere with impunity, while the foreign stores were blocked from expanding. Nowadays, Family Mart and 7-Eleven are still doing well, and the domestic brands have mostly caught up in terms of providing an attractive environment. The playing field is more level now, and I believe the old regulations have been scrapped.
    1