Questions
1. A CONVENIENCE STORE CHAIN ATTEMPTS TO BE RESPONSIVE AND PROVIDE CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY NEED, WHEN THEY NEED IT, WHERE THEY NEED IT. WHAT ARE SOME DIFFERENT WAYS THAT A CONVENIENCE STORE SUPPLY CHAIN CAN BE RESPONSIVE? WHAT ARE SOME RISKS IN EACH CASE?
As responsiveness increases, the convenience store chain is exposed to greater uncertainty. A convenience store chain can improve responsiveness to this uncertainty using one of the following strategies, especially for fresh and fast foods:
Local Capacity. The convenience store chain can provide local cooking capacity at the stores and assemble foods almost on demand. Inventory would be stored as raw material. This is seen at the U.S. fast-food restaurant franchise Subway where …show more content…

In fact, Home Depot itself is setting up these intermediate facilities for its new stores that are often smaller.
5. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE 7DREAM CONCEPT FOR SEVEN-ELEVEN JAPAN? FROM A SUPPLY CHAIN PERSPECTIVE, IS IT LIKELY TO BE MORE SUCCESSFUL IN JAPAN OR THE UNITED STATES? WHY?
7dream makes sense given that Japanese customers are happy to receive their shipments at the local convenience store. From a logistics perspective, online deliveries can piggy back on Seven-Eleven’s existing distribution network in Japan. Deliveries from the online supplier can be brought to the DC where they are sorted along with other deliveries destined for a store. This should increase the utilization of outbound transportation allowing Seven-Eleven to offer a lower cost alternative to having a package carrier deliver the product at home. The primary negatives are that 7dream will use up storage space and require the store to be able to retrieve specific packages for customers.
One can argue that the concept may be more successful in Japan given the existing distribution network of Seven-Eleven and the frequency of visits by customers. Online delivery is able to link with the existing network. The high visit frequency ensures that packages are not occupying valuable store shelf space for a long time. Also, the frequent visits ensure that the marginal cost to the customer of picking up at a Japanese Seven-Eleven is