7-Eleven

7-Eleven is an international conglomerate which operates the largest chain of convenience stores in twenty countries including: Canada, United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico in the Americas; Norway, Sweden and Denmark in Europe; People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan in East Asia; the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in Southeast Asia; and also South Africa and Australia. Stores operated in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1990s but did not prove popular.

The company was founded in Oak Cliff, Texas, which is now part of Dallas, in 1927, and started to use the 7-Eleven name in 1946; the previous branding of these stores was as "Speedee-Mart". Supermarket chain Ito-Yokado, which operates 7-Eleven stores in Japan, purchased the majority interest of Southland Corporation in 1991. Also in 1999, Southland Corporation changed its name to 7-Eleven, Inc.

Initially, these stores used to be open from 7 am to 11 pm, which was quite unprecedented at the time, hence the name; however, most 7-Eleven stores are now open twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. 7-Eleven's most popular private label products include: Slurpees, a partially frozen slurry in a number of flavors, and the Big Gulp super size soft drink in 32, 44, 52, and 64 (American) fluid ounce sizes. In 2005, 7-Eleven introduced their largest soft drink product, the 128 fluid ounce (1 gallon) Team Gulp.

In November of 2005, Seven & I Holdings Co. completed the purchase of 7-Eleven, Inc., turning the Texas-based publicly-traded conglomerate into a publicly-traded Japanese conglomerate. Seven-Eleven Japan is itself a subsidiary of Seven & i Holdings, which also owns the Japanese Denny's chain of restaurants and Ito-Yokado.

The only privately owned 7-11 stores are located in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma metropolitan area. These 100 stores are owned by the Brown Family, and carry a slightly different product selection than other 7-11 stores in the world. They do not serve hotdogs, or nachos but have their own bakery called Seventh Heaven, and have fresh baked donut and cookie/pastry rack in each store, while many other regional 7-11s will carry Dunkin' Donuts. Also, due to this agreement, they carry a similar product in lieu of the Slurpee, the Icy Drink. The one side effect to this being that national advertising campaigns and promotions (e.g. movie marketing tie-ins) cannot be used. This unique marketing agreement can be traced to a merger with the Oklahoma based U-Totem stores in the early 70's.

7-Eleven around the world

United States

In the United States, many 7-Eleven locations have gas stations with gasoline distributed by Citgo, which in 1983 was purchased by Southland Corporation (and 50% of Citgo was subsequently sold in 1986 to Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. and the remaining 50% in 1990). Although Citgo remains predominant as a 7-Eleven partner (as well as the supplier to 7-Eleven's with "7-Eleven gas"), other oil companies are also cobranded with 7-Eleven, including Fina, Exxon, Marathon, BP, and Pennzoil. Alon USA is the largest 7-Eleven licensee in North America. The latter of the group signed an agreement to cobrand with 7-Eleven at their remaining gas stations in 2003 following Shell's takeover of Pennzoil-Quaker State the year before.

In many U.S. states, 7-Eleven is the only large stand-alone convenience store chain in operation, and is thus synonymous with the term "convenience store" (see genericized trademark).

In 1987, Southland acquired High's Dairy Stores of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., many of which were converted to 7-Elevens.

Once ubiquitous, 7-Eleven stores are no longer found in some Midwestern states. In May 1998, it was announced that 113 7-Eleven stores would be sold and converted into Kum & Go stores. Other 7-Elevens, especially those in larger cities like Minneapolis-St Paul, closed. In states like Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, other convenience stores like SuperAmerica, QuikTrip, Casey's, and Speedway occupy the same market. In contrast, the chain does thrive in the Southwest and in Pennsylvania, particularly in the Pittsburgh market, despite fierce competition with the fast-growing chain Sheetz. Another example of the popularity of 7-Elevens in Pennsylvania is Bensalem, where the town of 60,000 has 4 of the stores in a 20-square-mile area.

Conversely, the chain has long ago pulled out of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania market, which has a strong local chain, Turkey Hill, and encroachment from Wawa from the Philadelphia area, and Sheetz from Altoona.

7-Eleven attempts to have critical mass in the regions in which they are located.

In late 2005, the company began building a new headquarters in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas. Since 1988, the headquarters had been at Cityplace Tower in the Cityplace neighborhood of Oak Lawn, near Uptown.

In early 2006, Citibank began operating 7-11 ATM's. This eliminated transaction fees for Citibank customers.

Australia

The first 7-Eleven in Australia opened in 1978. There are currently 361 stores in the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, the majority of stores are in metropolitan areas. Stores are owned operated as franchises, with a central administration. It has often been noted that the amount of 7-Eleven's located in the Melbourne CBD is excessive as there are many areas which there are multiple 7-Eleven stores within only a few meters of each other. ^* The City of Brisbane, Australia has the most 7 Eleven Stores within the CBD, a total of 46 stores is located within a 3km radius of the Brisbane CBD. Within Albert Street (Major City Street) there are 14 stores alone, with 4 stores being located on each corner of an intersection.

Canada

In Canada, a limited number of 7-Eleven locations have gas stations with gasoline distributed by Shell Canada or Petro-Canada. In November of 2005, they will also be rolling out 7-Eleven Wireless.

Winnipeg, Manitoba has had the honor of being designated the "Slurpee Capital of the World" for the past seven years.

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, 7-Eleven has been operated by Dairy Farm since 1981. In 2005, there were over 600 stores in the city, with most locations being in urbanized areas. About half of them are franchised stores. In September 2004, Dairy Farm acquired Daily Stop, a convenience store chain located mainly in the territory's MTR and KCR stations, and converted the Daily Stop stores to 7-Elevens in the spring of 2005.

7-Eleven in Hong Kong offers items such as food and drink, magazines, medicine, CDs, and MP3 songs. Extra services include the sale of postage stamps, the recharging of Octopus Cards, and ATMs found within the store premises. Also, microwaveable Dim Sum and other Chinese-style snacks can be bought.

Circle-K, another chain of convience stores, is 7-Eleven's major competitor in Hong Kong.

Japan

Japan has more 7-Eleven locations than anywhere else in the world. Of the 28,123 stores around the globe, 10,868 (39%) of them are located in Japan. 1,396 are in Tokyo alone. The reason for the large number of 7-Eleven stores in Japan is because there were no "western style" convenience stores before international chains opened in the late 1970s. Even today, convenience store chains vastly outnumber family-run convenience stores. Due to its popularity, 7-Eleven stores are coloquially referred to as "セブン" ("Sebun" or "Seven") by Japanese people.

The feel and look of the store is somewhat different from that of the U.S. 7-Elevens in Japan offer a wider selection of products and services. Japanese 7-Elevens offer not only food, drinks, and magazines, but also video games and consoles, music CDs, DVDs, alcohol, condoms, personal hygiene products, as well as seasonal items like Christmas cakes, Valentine's Day chocolates, and fireworks. Customers can also pay for utilities, buy concert tickets, and withdraw money from their bank accounts using the ATM. Slurpees and Big Gulp super size soft drinks are no longer sold in Japan; these products were not popular when 7-Eleven originally openened in Japan. Instead, hot and cold cans of coffee and cans and bottles of various teas are popular. Food sold includes Japanese as well as Western items. In the refrigerator case are onigiri, udon, sushi, salad, microwaveable burritos, sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and bento. Stores offer to heat up microwavable food on the premises and provide complimentary chopsticks or western style cutlery. On the shelves are instant ramen and other dried noodles, bread and rolls, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and other condiments, chocolate and other sweets, and snack foods such as potato chips. From warmers, the store provides hot foods like oden, corn dogs and large Chinese meat buns. Physically, almost every Japanese 7-Eleven is laid out in a similar way, with the magazine racks facing a long storefront window. This is intended to prevent patrons from loitering and reading the magazines and comic books by making them visible to people outside the store.

On September 1, 2005, Seven & I Holdings Co., Ltd., a new holding company, became the parent company of 7-Eleven, Ito Yokado, and Denny's Japan.

7-Elevens in Korea, China and Thailand are very similar to those found in Japan, and often sell Japanese food items as well.

Malaysia

7-Elevens in Malaysia are owned by Convenience Shopping Sdn. Bhd. ( CSSB ) which operates about 700 stores. 7-Eleven in Malaysia was incorporated on June 4, 1984. 7-Eleven has operated for over 20 years in Malaysia.

Scandinavia

The Scandinavian 7-Eleven is a part of Reitangruppen AS. All stores are franchised and 7-Eleven often tries to place the stores on corners in city centers.

In Norway, 7-Eleven was established in 1986. As of August 2004, there are 86 7-Eleven stores in Norway. 7-Eleven in Norway opened its first store in the Smestad intersection on the west end of Oslo.

The first Danish 7-Eleven was opened in Østerbro on September 14, 1993. As of the end of 2005, there were over 55 stores, mostly in Copenhagen, Århus, Aalborg and Odense. From 2005 stores were also located in shopping malls.

7-Eleven Sverige has the license in Sweden since 1993. In the mid-90's, 7-Eleven in Sweden received bad publicity, resulting in many stores being sold and closed down. For a time there were only 7-Elevens in Stockholm and Gothenburg. 7-Eleven returned to the south of Sweden in 2001 when a convenience store opened in Lund. As of 2005 there are 73 7-Elevens in Sweden: 55 of them in Stockholm, 16 in Gothenburg, two in Lund, two in Helsingborg and one in Malmö.

Taiwan

In Taiwan, the 7-Eleven is the most popular convenience store, and is owned by The President Chain Store in conjunction with the Seven Eleven Inc in the United States. The first store opened in 1980 and since then has grown to cover 4037 stores as of 2006 ^*. In fact, behind Japan and the United States, Taiwan has the world's third largest collection of 7-Eleven convenience stores. Actually, even this figure doesn't do justice to the popularity of this chain there. Considering that Taiwan's total population is much smaller than either that of Japan or the USA, if you divide each country's population by the number of 7-11's, this gives Taiwan the leading edge at 6200 potential shoppers for each Seven Eleven convenience store. The difference is easy to see compared to Japan being second (14946 potential customers for each 7-Eleven) and America third with 48359 customers for each store. The Taiwanese often say that there is a 7-Eleven "around every street corner" in the city (indeed, it is possible to stand at one 7-Eleven and see another one or two on the street), while in the United States you might have to travel over a mile or so to find another of the same store.

In fact, 7-Eleven is often located adjacent to COSMED (a drugstore similar to and competing with Watson's) and Starbucks, forming a triplex of independent stores all operated by the President Chain Stores.

Thailand

7-Eleven has close to 3,500 stores in Thailand (as of 2005), of which more than 1000 are in Bangkok.

7-Eleven in Thailand is part of the Charoen Pokphand Group (http://www.cpthailand.com)

Philippines

In the Philippines, 7-Eleven is the market leader for convenience stores. It has more than 275 stores scattered around Luzon, most of which are in Metro Manila. It is run by the Philippine Seven Corporation (PSC) where the first store opened was in 1984. In 2000, President Chain Store Corporation (PCSC) of Taiwan, also a licensee of 7-Eleven, bought the majority shares of PSC and thus formed a strategic alliance for the convenience store industry within the region. Today 7-Eleven enjoys continuing growth and expansion in the Philippine market and aims to achieve the same market reach as 7-Eleven Japan and Taiwan.

7-Eleven Philippines today is focused on redefining and enhancing convenience through strategic initiatives designed to take advance of new technologies and merchandising processes, but which remain based on the fundamental principle of the simple business concept it pioneered over 70 years ago - to provide customers an ever changing selection of quality products and services at fair everyday prices, through speedy transactions in a clean, safe and friendly environment.

Singapore

In Singapore, 7-Eleven forms the largest chain of convenience stores islandwide. There are at present 206 7-Eleven stores scattered throughtout the country. Stores in Singapore are operated by the Dairy Farm Group, franchised under a licensing agreement with 7-Eleven Incorporated, headquartered in the United States.

The first 7-Eleven stores in Singapore were operated in 1983 with a franchise license under the Jardine Matheson Group. The license was then acquired by Cold Storage Singapore, a subsidiary of the Dairy Farm Group, in 1989. At present, 7 Eleven plans to expand its base to include 300 stores, within the next few years. 7-Eleven has also recently signed an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell to include its convenience stores in all Shell Petrol Stations.

All the 7-Eleven stores in Singapore operate round the clock, except for stores in hospitals and MRT Stations, which have shorter operating hours. 7-Eleven Singapore has four proprietary products. They are Big Gulp, Slurpee, Mr Softee (soft serve ice cream), and Quickbites (Light finger food).

Trivia

July 11th is "7-11 day", during which patrons can get a Free Slurpee at participating stores.

The trademark logo of 7-Eleven is all capital letters except the "n" is lower-case.

The company previously did business as Super 7 in Indianapolis, Indiana for many years (with "super" replacing "eleven" in the traditional logo) due to a local supermarket chain having already used the 7-Eleven name. (That chain has since changed its name.)

A computerized 7-Eleven can be seen in the movie Back to the Future Part II, in the 2015 scene where it is cobranded with an automated Texaco gas station. The logo for 7-Eleven in this movie has the white square replaced with a white circle with a stylized "7" with the word "Eleven" shifted to the right.
- In Back To The Future Part III, the protagonist Marty participated in a shooting game at a town festival and shot down all targets. When asked where he learned to shoot like that, he said, "7-Eleven". Since 7-Eleven wasn't as popular when the movie first debuted, some foreign versions of the film replace 7-Eleven with Disneyland.

An episode of Futurama showed a 31st Century version of the store, with a logo that removes the word "eleven" and replaces it with a small numeric "11" just to the upper right of the "7", as if to denote "7 to the 11th power". A sign beneath it boasts that the store is "open 28 hours".

Rock band 311 used to manufacture t-shirts featuring the 7-Eleven logo with the numeral "7" replaced by a "3." Yet in 2001, the band received a cease-and-desist letter from the corporation ^*.

7-Eleven once had a Pineapple flavored Slurpee to tie in with The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Swedish pop star Jens Lekman references the chain in his song "Tram #7 To Heaven," singing the lyric, "Did you eat your banana from 7-Eleven?"

Jim Carrey's character stops at a Kansas 7-Eleven en route to Aspen, Colorado in Dumb and Dumber, where he attempts to make small talk with customers consuming Big Gulps.

The female working population of Seven Eleven is the subject of a Mindless Self Indulgence song entitled "Seven Eleven."

A line from Bowling For Soup's song Here We Go is "...at 7-Eleven everyday and night".

External links

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