Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Rendello 201 days ago
When I was in Poland, I was shocked by the number of Żabka convenience stores. They didn't look quite like Japanese combinis (from what I've seen online), but were leagues ahead of the typical North American convenience stores. They were on every corner, sometimes you could look down the street and see multiple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBabka_(convenience_store)

1 comments

Yes, however this approach is what killing Żabka franchisees in similar way as Subways in the US. If one store is profitable enough to stay alive, another one emerges in a very close proximity, resulting in both stores cannibalizing each other profits and the risk regarding losses is being put entirely on small franchisees rather than the big company.
That makes sense. Zooming into Warsaw (or most other cities) on the Żabka map, it's unbelievable how many there are:

https://www.zabka.pl/znajdz-sklep/