Market Entry Strategies of Foreign Convenience Store Chains into the Chinese Market: Assessing How 7-Eleven Entered China

The retail market continues to grow throughout the world especially in China, and it’s expected to keep growing due to the rapid change in Chinese economy and culture. The Chinese economy continues to be a very attractive destination for investment as the economy continues to challenge the United States for top spot. However, entering the market has not been easy for many foreign companies especially western ones. To answer the question why, researchers found that foreign companies made wrong assumptions about the Chinese market, failed to Localize their products and failed to create strong partnerships with local companies. On the other hand, Japanese companies have been thriving in this very market. In the quest to find out what Japanese convenience store chains did differently that brought them so much success in such a competitive, a case study of 7-Eleven, one of the most successful convenience store brands in the world and the most successful in China, was embarked on. The main source of the data were the many websites that were researched and finally, an interview with one of the local 7-Eleven stores. The researchers found that, joint ventures, licensing, franchising and ownership were the main market entry strategies that could be used to enter China.7-Eleven mainly used licensing and franchising, and have managed to become one of the most renowned franchisors in the world.