---
title: "Insights Behind Meiyijia's Rise to the Top and FamilyMart's Stumble"
description: "After a year of rapid expansion, the competitive landscape of China's convenience store industry has shifted significantly. In 2022, Meiyijia topped the list with 30,008 stores, surpassing Sinopec's Yijie, while FamilyMart saw its first store decline in five years, raising questions about its position and the implications of Meiyijia's success."
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published: "2023-04-23"
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# Insights Behind Meiyijia's Rise to the Top and FamilyMart's Stumble

> After a year of rapid expansion, the competitive landscape of China's convenience store industry has shifted significantly. In 2022, Meiyijia topped the list with 30,008 stores, surpassing Sinopec's Yijie, while FamilyMart saw its first store decline in five years, raising questions about its position and the implications of Meiyijia's success.

After a year of rapid expansion, the competitive landscape of China's convenience store industry has shifted significantly. On April 17, the China Chain Store & Franchise Association released the 2022 China Convenience Store TOP100 list.

2022 China Convenience Store TOP30

Data shows that in 2022, Meiyijia ranked first with 30,008 stores; Sinopec's Yijie convenience stores followed with 28,006 stores; and PetroChina's昆仑好客 (Kunlun Hao Ke) ranked third with 20,600 stores. Overall, the total number of stores of the TOP100 convenience store enterprises in 2022 was 171,340, an increase of 6.59% from 160,744 in 2021. However, the gap between enterprise tiers has not narrowed. Among the top 100 convenience store enterprises, only Meiyijia surpassed the 30,000-store mark; followed by the "oil series" Yijie and Kunlun Hao Ke, in the 20,000-30,000 range; all other enterprises had fewer than 10,000 stores, with Tianfu Convenience Stores ranking fourth with only 6,970 stores, a net increase of 344 from the previous year. However, small and medium-sized convenience store enterprises with 1,000-10,000 stores also showed good development momentum, with the number of enterprises increasing by 5 to 29, and their store share rising from 35.13% last year to 38.43%. Regional brands still constitute the majority of convenience store brands.

Additionally, the three major Japanese convenience store brands—Lawson, 7-ELEVEN, and FamilyMart—had a total of 11,626 stores in China, a net increase of 1,365 from the previous year. Lawson opened its 5,000th store in Chengdu in July last year. By individual brand, among the TOP20, only 5 brands saw a decline in store numbers. Among local brands, Meiyijia grew the fastest with a net increase of 3,840 stores; among foreign brands, Lawson grew the fastest with a net increase of 1,175 stores.

Table: Lianshang.com

It is noteworthy that through several years of rapid expansion, Meiyijia finally became the convenience store enterprise with the most stores and the fastest store opening in China in 2022, surpassing Sinopec's Yijie for the first time to claim the throne. At the same time, the highly watched Japanese convenience store giant FamilyMart saw its first decline in store numbers in five years, with a net decrease of 236 stores. In contrast, other Japanese convenience store representatives Lawson and 7-ELEVEN (adding 426 stores) continued to expand. Does FamilyMart's store decline indicate its decline in the Chinese market, and what lessons can be drawn from Meiyijia's rise? To see through the surface, we interviewed several senior retail experts with these two samples of advance and retreat, hoping to capture more clues about the development of the convenience store industry from their conversations.

**Meiyijia's Rise to the Top Through Franchising?**

Looking back at Meiyijia's development history, since its establishment in 1997, Meiyijia has expanded for over a decade with Dongguan, Guangdong as its center. On November 30, 2022, Meiyijia announced that its effective stores nationwide exceeded 30,000. In the past two years, Meiyijia has opened nearly 5,000 stores annually, with an average of over 12 stores opening daily, ultimately forming a national layout covering 260 cities in South China, Central China, East China, and other regions. As a typical local franchise convenience store brand, the 25-year-old Meiyijia has broken through from Guangdong, providing a reference for the expansion of local convenience stores. It is worth exploring: what exactly drives Meiyijia's development speed far exceeding other brands? Is this rapid expansion through franchising a healthy development state?

Lin Xin, visiting professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and senior convenience store expert, gave a specific answer: it is its loose franchise model and fully built supply chain that determine Meiyijia's ability to expand rapidly across different provinces. Zhang Li, chairman of Xiamen Jianfu Convenience Stores, proposed that franchising is definitely the main way out for chain convenience stores. Meiyijia's excellent speed is of great reference significance for the development of the convenience store industry. Behind its brand output, there must be enormous energy in products, logistics, supply chain, and other aspects that match its development strategy, and these capabilities are worth learning from for all convenience store enterprises.

In response, Zhou Yong, director of the senior advisory group of Lianshang.com, also gave a positive response. He believes that Meiyijia's expansion shows that it has gained recognition from investors and consumers, and also confirms that franchising is the inevitable path for convenience store development. As for whether it is healthy development, Zhou Yong mentioned that it mainly depends on whether the franchisor can continuously promote franchisees to make money. The franchisor is not a "police station" but a service provider. This is crucial: the stronger the service capability, the more it attracts franchisees, and the healthier its development. However, this also places high demands on the franchisor's management system. Lin Xin pointed out that the disadvantages of the loose franchise represented by Meiyijia are obvious in management and competitiveness. From the actual results, Meiyijia's stores are mainly concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities, and it is clearly helpless when facing first- and second-tier cities dominated by foreign convenience store brands.

**FamilyMart Falling Behind?**

Japanese convenience stores represented by FamilyMart, Lawson, and 7-ELEVEN are undoubtedly leaders in operations and management. Regarding the decline in FamilyMart's store numbers in China, Lin Xin pointed out that it is mainly due to the contract dispute with Ting Hsin International Group, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, which led to stagnation in store development and continuous store closures. A senior practitioner in the convenience store industry also corroborated this view, noting that although FamilyMart is restricted in regional expansion due to contract reasons, in terms of IP, membership marketing, and QSC enhancement, among the three major brands, 7-ELEVEN is slightly inferior.

It is understood that Ting Hsin International Group and FamilyMart's Japanese parent company renegotiated an agreement last year, ending the four-year contract dispute. Lin Xin revealed that, barring unexpected circumstances, FamilyMart will open a large number of new stores in China this year, and according to convention, there will also be a large number of 5-6 year old stores renovated and relaunched. Considering only the reduction in store numbers, the so-called "falling behind" is a one-sided view. Taking into account comprehensive factors such as daily sales and profitability, FamilyMart's development momentum in China should not be underestimated.

Zhang Li gave the same opinion. He believes that last year's decline in FamilyMart's store numbers was the result of organizational adjustments during the epidemic, a correct tactical contraction to prepare for subsequent efforts. As for the differences in development speed among the three, from a macro perspective, they are mainly caused by their different organizational forms. Among them, Lawson's franchise model in China is relatively flexible, with various forms such as large franchise, small franchise, regional authorization, and franchising, adapting to local conditions. In contrast, besides FamilyMart, which has just escaped the dispute, 7-ELEVEN has always maintained a steady pace. As for Lawson's accelerated expansion, in Lin Xin's view, it may be related to the change of leadership last year. He also emphasized that Japanese convenience stores place more emphasis on operational management development, while most domestic convenience stores adopt a loose franchise model, which is more like a simple product supply relationship. In any case, judging heroes solely by the number of stores is not objective. Even if the number of stores is less than local convenience stores, foreign brands still show significant advantages in development.

**Local Convenience Stores Still Have a Long Way to Go**

Zhang Li pointed out that the development of local convenience store brands still has a long way to go. He analyzed the meaning of this statement from a macro perspective: First, the major foreign convenience store brands in China have strong parent company support, such as Lawson, FamilyMart, and 7-ELEVEN. After entering China, they helped the brands cross the line of life and death in terms of capital and other resources during the introduction and growth period, while domestic convenience store brands almost fight alone. Second, when people talk about convenience stores, they inevitably mention foreign brands like Lawson, FamilyMart, and 7-ELEVEN. Local convenience stores have a significant gap in brand influence and user mindshare. Third, in the face of the organizational structure and operational models accumulated by foreign convenience store brands over decades of development, local convenience stores have little advantage in product systems and user insight systems. Therefore, under the influence of these three development gaps, the future of local convenience stores is still not optimistic.

According to international convenience store industry experience, when per capita GDP reaches $10,000, the industry enters a rapid development stage; when per capita GDP is $15,000-$25,000, convenience stores enter a mature stage, and market concentration will increase significantly. China's per capita GDP in 2019 was 70,078 yuan, already crossing the $10,000 threshold. As early as May 2021, the Ministry of Commerce and 11 other departments jointly issued opinions to promote the construction of a 15-minute convenient living circle in cities, and stated that by 2025, cities with conditions should take action to truly build the 15-minute convenient living circle into a "happy circle" for community residents. Currently, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and many other places across the country are responding to the call, which undoubtedly brings great dividends to the development of the convenience store industry. However, this does not mean that local convenience stores have ushered in a node of rapid development.

Zhou Yong pointed out that although domestic convenience store enterprises have developed rapidly in recent years under government promotion, they generally do not make money. At present, it is not the best time for the development of the convenience store industry for three reasons: First, there are many convenience store brands, making integration difficult. In the national grocery store system, convenience stores are a "niche," while private grocery stores are the "mainstream." Chain stores have weaker profitability, so losses outweigh gains. Second, after more than 30 years of cultivation, the consumer base of convenience stores is relatively mature, but in vast low-tier cities, national brand convenience stores are still not mainstream. The maturity of consumers does not match the scale development of convenience stores. Third, under government promotion, there is a dangerous situation where convenience stores only seek scale but not efficiency.

Lin Xin also pointed out that the development environment for local convenience store enterprises is not friendly enough. Although previously issued measures can bring convenience to convenience store development to a certain extent, compared with countries like Japan, there is still great room for exploration in policies specifically for the convenience store format. As supporting facilities, it is hoped that in the future, more policies beneficial to the development of the convenience store industry will appear in areas such as industry and commerce and taxation.

Compared with policy support, Zhang Li prefers convenience store enterprises to find a way out from their own development perspective. In his view, various policy assistance is a bonus, not a decisive factor for an enterprise's survival. Without policy support, the convenience store industry cannot grow healthily; but if it relies solely on policy support, convenience stores cannot achieve long-term development.

Acknowledging the gap with foreign enterprises and recognizing their own problems is the first step for the development of the local convenience store industry. After that, there are three directions to strive for: First, gradually transform from wholesale-type retail to manufacturing-type retail, providing consumers with unique products, and becoming a true convenience store rather than a simple retail wholesaler; second, establish an efficient logistics system; third, improve the product structure and organizational structure.

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