Someone who is cheerful and personable. People who like talking to people and being helpful. People who are good at leading others and organizing groups. People who are physically strong. Patient and persevering.

Convenience store is an abbreviation of "convenience store. Although small in size, they sell a wide variety of products, including food and beverages, and offer a number of services such as document copying, utility bill collection, parcel delivery, ticketing, and ATMs. Moreover, most stores are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, making them as convenient as their name suggests. Some stores are independently operated by individuals or companies, but most are managed under what is called a "franchise" system. No matter which management system is used, the job of the store manager is the same. The most important job of all is to "manage" the store to ensure that it is well run and operated. The most important of these is "merchandise management," which involves purchasing the goods to be sold in the store. One of the services is to make sure that the store has enough products that customers want. To do this, the store must keep a replenishment reserve in the warehouse to ensure that there are no shortages of items on the sales floor. However, items with expiration dates, such as rice balls and boxed lunches, are not sold when they expire, and unsold items are a loss for the store. The store manager must therefore forecast sales and decide how much to stock in order to increase profits without incurring a loss. This is where the store manager shows his or her skills. The store manager's role is also to manage employees, which includes deciding on the hiring of employees and part-time workers, instructing them on their jobs, and planning their work shifts (the order in which they are rotated). If an employee or part-timer is unable to work, the manager may be responsible for serving customers for long hours. The manager's job as the person in charge of the store is harder than one might imagine, as he or she sometimes has to listen to customers' complaints. It is a job that requires energy and stamina to cope with any situation.

The company that operates a major convenience store is called the "headquarter," and stores directly managed by the headquarter are called "directly managed stores. On the other hand, some convenience stores with the same name are operated by an individual or another company, but not by the headquarters. In fact, major convenience stores have a "franchise" system. In this system, franchisees join a group called a "chain" and pay a royalty fee to the headquarters, which allows them to use the same store name, signage, and store interior design as the major convenience stores, and also provides them with management guidance. Franchisees must pay a fixed percentage of their monthly sales to the head office, but the advantage is that they can take advantage of the name recognition of the major convenience stores and sell popular products. The stores that take advantage of this are called "franchise stores. Thus, there are two paths to becoming a convenience store manager: manager of a directly managed store or manager of a franchise store.

There are no special qualifications to become a store manager at either directly managed or franchise stores, and no educational background is required.
First, to become a store manager at a directly managed store, one must join the head office as a regular employee. Full-time employees actually work at directly managed stores to acquire the skills and knowledge to run the stores, and they work as store managers in this process. However, the manager of a directly managed store is not the ultimate goal of a regular employee. In the future, they often take on leadership roles in franchise stores, marketing, and product planning and development. It would be better to think of the manager of a directly managed store as a transit point for a full-time employee to advance to the next level of work.
On the other hand, there are two ways to become a manager of a franchise store. One is to become an "owner-manager" by signing a contract with the headquarters to join the franchise as a store owner. There is also a system whereby the head office provides you with a store even if you do not own the store. The other is to join a company that operates franchise stores, or be favored by the owner, and work as an "employee manager" who is given the responsibility of store manager. Some people become store managers because their part-time work performance has been purchased.
In any of these methods, if you have the motivation, opening your own business is not just a dream.

Convenient convenience stores will not disappear in the future. However, convenience stores, which have continued to increase in number, will stop growing in 2020, the year of the Corona disaster. Some believe that the management method of rapidly adding new stores will reach its limits due to the declining population and other factors. From now on, it will be important to increase sales at existing stores. Store managers will need to be more attentive to customers' needs through customer service, and to provide products and services that will satisfy them more than ever. In urban areas, "self-checkout" services, in which customers pay for their purchases without the need for store clerks to be present in the store, may become the mainstream service. For customers in rural areas who have difficulty coming to the store, a service that accepts orders via video chat over the Internet and delivers the goods by drone is also possible. Continuous efforts to make customers find this service "convenient" will remain unchanged in the future.

The average annual salary of a manager of yataware or directly managed stores is 4.2-5.45 million yen, although it varies depending on the contract between the head office and the franchise store and other factors. The average annual salary of owner-managers ranges from 6.57 to 9.7 million yen.

The store is open 24/7, but the management staff, including the manager, generally takes two days off a week. However, the manager may work on holidays when there is a shortage of operating staff due to unscheduled absences of employees or part-time workers.

Convenience store. In addition to serving customers on the store's sales floor and at the cash register, they often work in the back of the store (office, warehouse, etc.), known as the "back yard.

It's a chart that shows at a glance the main routes to getting a job as a convenience store manager!