Fast Fashion Comes to FamilyMart

[Tokyo, Japan]

Fashion is the newest growth engine in the Japanese convenience store industry.

Family Mart, the second largest convenience store in Japan, is leading the convenience store clothing market since launching its own clothing brand in March 2021. Lawson, which ranks third in the industry, sells clothing from the household goods brand Muji. 7-Eleven, the industry leader, plans to become a latecomer by selling products from Atastoria, the third-largest clothing manufacturer in Japan, starting June 2024.

Bolstered by their distribution network and the 24-hour convenience factor, fashion sales in convenience stores are now large enough to threaten clothing specialty companies such as Uniqlo.

FamilyMart is growing rapidly in the convenience store clothing sector by leveraging the supply chain of its parent company, Itochu Corporation, which is strong in the textile business. In collaboration with Japanese designer Hiromichi Ochiai, the company launched about 100 of private label clothing products, including socks, handkerchiefs, T-shirts, and jogger pants, and even held a fashion show in November last year. This year, FamilyMart plans to release new seasonal products so that consumers can coordinate everything from head to toe with Family Mart items. Sales of socks designed with FamilyMart’s signature blue and green lines reached 19 million pairs as of the end of April 2024.

The Nippon Keizai (Nikkei) newspaper reports, “Although ‘Uniqlo’ still dominates the Japanese clothing industry, buying casual clothes at a convenience store will fast become a common scene in the Japanese daily life... There are stores all over the country, and the convenience of being able to purchase from anywhere in Japan is an advantage as they are open 24 hours a day.” According to Nikkei, FamilyMart sells private label clothing products in about 16,300 stores across Japan as of the end of last month. It is about 20 times larger than the number of Uniqlo stores, which has the largest market share in the Japanese clothing industry (about 800 stores in Japan).