Reciprocal Retail Internationalisation: the Southland Corporation, Ito-Yokado and 7-Eleven Convenience Stores

Abstract

Retail internationalisation has become a focus of research activity in recent years. This research has become perhaps both more broad and deep than previous research, reflecting the changes in retail internationalisation itself. There remain, however, fundamental issues about the process and nature of retail internationalisation. This paper examines initially the internationalisation of a concept -the 7-Eleven convenience store - from the USA to Japan. This concept has been subsequently ‘Japanized’ as the convenience store sector in Japan grew rapidly and successfully. The new approach to convenience stoers has now been re-introduced into the United States through the agreed take-over of The Southland Corporation by its original Japanese franchisee, Ito-Yokado. This process of retail internationalisation is analysed and described and placed into the context of current conceptualisations on retail internationalisation.