Beyond merely buying snacks, customers in the nation’s convenience stores can grab a cup of coffee, book train or concert tickets, collect online purchases, pay utility bills, send out laundry, manage bank accounts, return library books and even obtain local currency.
When more cyclists started to tour the nation, some convenience stores at key locations set up special zones for cyclists. For foreign travelers, 7-Eleven and Family Mart — the nation’s top two convenience store chains — began providing New Taiwan dollar to yuan exchange services in three stores.
The variety of uses might help explain why Taiwan has so many convenience stores — probably the highest concentration in the Asia-Pacific region or the world, sources from the industry said.
In 2013, the five largest convenience store chains had 10,014 stores in the nation, according to a news release by the Cabinet-level Fair Trade Commission in December last year.
There are 7,397 stores in the six special municipalities — Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — which means they are clustered in urban areas, especially in northern Taiwan, with 4,649 stores (46.43 percent of the national total) in Taipei , New Taipei City and Taoyuan, where 8.75 million residents live, comprising about 37.31 percent of Taiwan’s 23.45 million people.
There were 2.878 billion visits to convenience stores in 2013, which translates into an average of 122.73 trips for every man, woman and child in the nation that year.
With the Internet of Things and omnichannel retailing becoming prevalent, the nation’s convenience store chains are trying to take advantage of their popularity via mobile apps and mobile devices to tap into the new opportunities, sources from the industry said.
7-Eleven (more than 5,000 stores), Family Mart (about 2,900 stores), Hi-Life (about 1,250 stores) and OK Mart (about 890 stores) are the four largest convenience store chains in Taiwan.
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