Dominiek.com

Thanks to Google Maps, I can make some late-night pancakes! (That’s panneNkoeken for you Dutchies) After I felt the sudden urge to make them, I went to the nearest convenience store near my girlfriend’s house. This convenience-store franchise called ‘Sunkus’ (pronounced as Sunkss) is one of many Japanese to-go grocery franchises. The Sunkus, marked on the left, didn’t have any more eggs (tamago), so I only bought milk (gyuunyuu). After leaving the Sunkus I was about to walk to the convenience store at the station, called Lawson (marked in blue, top left). Then suddenly I remembered the Google Maps image of the neighbourhood showing a new, unknown convenience store. After walking to the east for a few seconds, I began seeing the 7-eleven sign (marked right). Here, I could buy eggs after all.

Now, why am I taking so much effort to illustrate what just happened? I want to show you two things.

A: In the Tokyo Metropolitan Area there is a convenience store in at least every 500 metres. Often these convenience stores are franchised, laying the eggs for a huge distribution network. The most common franchises are: Lawson, 7-Eleven, AM-PM, Family Mart, SunKus and Newdays.

B: Interestingly, Google Maps has visualized these convenience stores. It really makes me wonder why they either gathered the information or bought it. Is it just to provide information to the Google Maps users? Is it a hint of their Gmaps advertising service? Do the convenience stores pay to put their franchises mapped?

What happens when you take A and B and try to mash them together in the context of convenience?