Since our foundation in 1980, our mission at Circle K Sunkus for 30 years has been to grow as a business and become the consumer’s convenience store of choice. In those 30 years, the goods and services consumers look for in a convenience store changed dramatically and Circle K Sunkus has moved with the times. The social environment has been changing in recent years, including a graying population following improved longevity and low birthrates, as well as a consequent rise in the number of people who live alone. These changes in the operating environment have brought the convenience store industry to a major turning point. Likewise, the convenience store format of the past 30 years appears to have reached a crossroads. For us, 2011 will be more than simply our 31st year in business. It will be the year we begin an era for new convenience stores; a year in which we change track and reposition ourselves on a new growth strategy.
Our management policy for the year ending February 29, 2012 will be Rethink Everything and Put Innovation into Action . Circle K Sunkus will take action to put new convenience stores in place, always embracing new ideas without being caught in the past.
One course of action will be to build Convenience Stores Amenable to Senior Citizens. These stores will target middle and senior aged customers who have emerged as principal consumers. Neighborhood shopping districts have been in decline lately with supermarkets undergoing consolidation or even closure. People in Japan are increasingly finding themselves unable to go shopping close to home. This is a troubling social phenomenon. In response, we will begin developing fresh produce convenience stores with a strengthened lineup of fresh produce and daily delivery merchandise. Making those foods and merchandise available around the clock, in addition to the usual goods and services we stock, will enable our neighborhood customers to shop with greater convenience. Another course of action will be to launch a new generation of convenience stores for the next 30 years. To this end, we have begun launching mini-stores that are free from preconceptions of how a convenience store should look, and started developing hybrid stores tied-up with other subsectors in retail.
Services made available to consumers inside convenience stores have continued to evolve, but at a faster pace, in recent years. Here, our first priority will be to focus on the KARUWAZA Club in-house membership club to strengthen the convenience and entertainment value of the services at our stores. In particular, we will launch KARUWAZA ONLINE, an Internet retail portal that ties online shopping with KARUWAZA CLUB points and taking free delivery of purchases at any one of our Circle K Sunkus stores. Through these and other innovations, we will respond to the broad and divergent needs of our customers by delivering a product and service lineup exceeding the space and framework constraints of orthodox convenience stores.
With the head office and franchise stores working as one, Circle K Sunkus will put each and every one of these innovations into action to remain the consumer’s convenience store of choice. We look forward to your continued patronage and support.
March 1, 2011
