7-Eleven

Template:Infobox Company 7-Eleven is an international conglomerate which operates the largest chain of convenience stores in twenty countries including: the United States, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Republic of China (Taiwan), People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, Singapore, and South Africa.

The company was founded in Oak Cliff, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, in 1927, and started to use the 7-Eleven name in 1946; the previous branding of these stores was as "Speedee-Mart". The majority of today's 7-Eleven stores are operated in Japan since the Japanese-based company Ito-Yokado purchased the majority interest from Southland Corporation in 1991. Also in 1991, Southland Corporation changed its name to 7-Eleven, Inc.

Initially, these stores used to be open from 7 am to 11 pm, 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 the United States and Canada, a limited number of 7-Eleven locations have gas stations with gasoline distributed by Citgo and Shell Canada, respectively.

In certain U.S. states, such as California, 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.) Residents of such states are usually surprised by the diversity of convenience store chains in other parts of the world, or even other U.S. states.

Additionally, in the states where 7-Eleven stores sell gasoline, a common reaction from those who live in other states is, "7-Eleven's sell gasoline?" The response from those in the area where 7-Eleven's do sell petroleum is "There are 7-Eleven's that don't sell gasoline?" The mutual recognition and confusion is a testament to the ubiquity of 7-Eleven stores.

7-Eleven stores are not present at all in some states, however, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin. In those states, other convience stores like SuperAmerica and Speedway occupy the same market.

Contents

1 Japan 2 Hong Kong 3 Scandinavia 4 External links

Japan

In Japan, 7-Eleven offers not only food, drinks, and magazines, but also video games and consoles, music CDs, and DVDs, as well as seasonal items like Christmas cakes. Slurpees and Big Gulp super size soft drinks are not sold in Japan. The feel and look of the store is somewhat different from that of the U.S. Food sold include onigiri, udon, oden, hot foods like corn dogs, large Chinese meat buns, sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and bento.

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

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, 7-Eleven is operated by Dairy Farm from 1981. There are over 600 stores in the city in 2005. About half of them are franchised stores. In September 2004, Dairy Farm acquired Daily Stop, which was the vast majority in MTR and KCR stations, and renaming Daily Stop stores to 7-Eleven in the spring of 2005.

7-Eleven in Hong Kong offeres spectrum of commodities like food, drinks, maganzines, medicines, CDs, mp3 songs. It also offers some Chinese cooked food like rice dumpling, fish ball, and some instant food like dim-sums, sandwiches, noodles, rices.

Some extra services like selling post stamps, recharging Octopus Cards, ATM machines can also be found in the stores in Hong Kong.

Circle-K, another chain of convience stores, is its major competitor in Hong Kong.

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 79 7-Eleven stores in Norway.

The first Danish 7-Eleven was opened in Østerbro on September 14, 1993. As of the end of 2002, there were over 40 stores, mostly in Copenhagen, Århus and Aalborg.

7-Eleven Sverige has the license in Sweden since 1993. In the mid-90's, 7-Eleven in Sweden had a lot of trouble and the brand had got a bad reputation. Because of that, many stores where sold and there were only 7-Elevens in Stockholm and Gothenburg. In 2001, 7-Eleven returned to the south of Sweden, establishing a convenience store 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.

External links

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• 7-Eleven (http://www.7-eleven.com/)
• Ito-Yokado's (parent company) website (http://www.itoyokado.iyg.co.jp/company/index1_e.htm)
• 7-Elevent in Hong Kong (http://www.7-eleven.com.hk/)
• 7-11 in Taiwan (http://www.7-11.com.tw/english/index.asp)
• 7-Eleven in Thailand (http://www.7eleven.co.th/)ja:セブン-イレブン

th:เซเว่น อีเลฟเว่น sv:7-Eleven zh:7-Eleven