7-Eleven is the world's largest chain of convenience stores. Even largestlargelarger than McDonald's! Its stores are locationslocatedlocates in eighteen countries, with its largest markets being Japan, the United States, Taiwan, and Thailand. GloballyGlobalGlobalization, it operates franchises or licenses more than 35,200 storestoresstories. They serve approximately seven million customersconsumersclients every day.

 

The company originaloriginatedorigins in 1927 in Dallas, Texas, USA, when an employeremployeeemployment of Southland Ice Company, Joe C. Thompson, startedstartstarting selling milk, eggs and bread from an ice shop. Although theirtherethey're were already some small grocery stores in the area, Thompson, discovered that selling basicbasicsbasically items such as bread and milk reductionreducingreduced the need for people to travel longer distancesdistantdistance to grocery stores.

 

Thompson eventually broughtboughtbout the Southland Ice Company and turned it intoontoout of the Southland Corporation which soon opened several locations inonof the Dallas area. Initially, these stores we'rewherewere open from 7a.m. to 11p.m. while most competitioncompetingcompetitors stores opened later and closed much earlier. The company began to usinguseduse the 7-Eleven name in 1946, and by 1952, had opened it'sitsit is 100th store. In 1963, 7-Eleven experimented with a 24-hour schedulingschedulesschedule. Aggressive marketing strategicstrategiesstrategy and careful attention to consumer trends propelledpropelproper the company to unprecedented growinggrowthgrow throughout the 70's and mid 80's.

 

Despite stiffstaffstuff competition from similar retailers, 7-Eleven remainingremainsremain at the top the convenience store marketsmarketmarketing. In 2008, after placesplacingplaced in the top 10 a respectable 16 times, the companioncompaniescompany was named the number one franchise by Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500, beatingbeatbeating out Subway who had held the number one spitspatspot for 15 years.