🇯🇵 Japanese 7-Elevens

Good morning, Nerders. It’s Thursday, July 11th. In today’s newsletter, we cover:

• 7-Eleven is revamping its American business to be more Japanese

• The “magic number” Americans believe they need to save for retirement keeps going up

• What’s driving Abercrombie & Fitch’s incredible stock performance

TODAY’S STORY

Historically, U.S. convenience stores have made money selling tobacco and gas.

But, things are changing: Cigarettes have good margins, but total sales are declining since people are smoking less. Gas is already a low-margin business, and U.S. consumption is projected to slow down due to electric vehicle adoption.

As a result, 7-Eleven is revamping its American business to be more Japanese.

This includes offering a wider array of fresh foods, like spicy ramen soups, and implementing Japan’s 7-Eleven approach to operations and retailing.

They call it “Tanpin Kanri,” a retail practice that localizes product assortment to customers' needs. That means when you walk into a store, you might see fresh food products appropriate for a particular location based on the area’s demographic trends, as well as products that make sense nationally.

Fresh, local, and uniquely yours—welcome to the new 7-Eleven.

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DATA BYTES

How much money do you need to retire?

• U.S. adults believe they will need $1.46 million to retire comfortably, a 15% increase over the $1.27 million reported last year

• The “magic number” for retirement is far outpacing today’s inflation rate of 3.3% (12-month percentage change between May 2024 and May 2023)

#SHORTS

Abercrombie’s Turnaround

Watch on: TikTok, YouTube, Instagram

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To read the web version of previous stories, click here

If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email.

Thanks for reading,
Kieran & Justin Ryan