7-Eleven begins selling apparel to compete with FamilyMart's success

Seven-Eleven (hereinafter referred to as Seven) has started selling apparel. To develop apparel, we are collaborating with ANDESTY HD (formerly Adastria), which has the third largest sales in Japan. The plan is to initially roll out the service on a trial basis in a few hundred stores, and eventually expand it to approximately 22,000 stores nationwide.

In the convenience store industry, FamilyMart (hereinafter referred to as FamilyMart) will fully roll out "convenience wear" from 2021. The company aims to exceed sales of 20 billion yen in 2025 and 30 billion yen in 2026.

Even Seven cannot ignore the success of Family Mart's apparel.

Seven's same store sales have remained around 100% for the four months from April to July 2026, at 99.6%, 102.7%, 100.0%, and 100.6% compared to the same month last year. The number of customers at existing stores is on a downward trend, with many months being below the previous year's level at 97.5%, 100.8%, 96.5%, and 97.8%.

On the other hand, Family Mart's same store sales have been somewhat lackluster in the last two months, with sales at 101.0%, 101.2%, 96.8%, and 99.7% for the four months from April to July 2026. The number of customers at existing stores also continues to be below the previous year's level, at 98.0%, 97.6%, 96.3%, and 97.8%. This seems to be because, like Seven, customers are finding food items such as rice balls, boxed lunches, sandwiches, and tea to be expensive, which is causing them to stop visiting the store.

However, prior to that, Family Mart's same-store sales had exceeded the previous year's sales for 57 consecutive months, and sales had continued to grow for nearly five years. One of the factors that supported this sales increase was convenience wear.

Seven has been on a recovery path compared to the time when same-store sales were noticeably lower than the previous year due to suspicions that lunch box sales were going up and down. However, what we want is a hit product that will boost overall sales.

If Family Mart's nearly five-year run has ended and it is currently on a lull, it may be the perfect time for Seven to launch an apparel business and win back customers lost to other companies in the same industry.

What kind of impact will Seven's full-scale apparel expansion have on the market? I would like to explore it while looking at the progress made so far.