Last Updated on 2017-05-27 , 4:16 pm

There’s one kind of retailer that will never be killed off by online shopping, and that is the convenience store: located usually in the heartlands, they provide the best solution for hungry souls in the middle of the night, despite the hefty prices.

In Singapore, there’s an ongoing weird trend: supermarkets are opening 24 hours as well, effectively giving convenience stores the middle finger as they usually price their items much lower.

But here’s the thing: you need five minutes to find whatever you want in a supermarket. In a convenience store, all it takes is five seconds. In other words, convenience store FTW (at least for now)!

The largest chain of convenience stores in Singapore and Malaysia is no doubt 7-Eleven. While they are everywhere, my person opinion is they’re not-so-everywhere yet—so when we read the news about FamilyMart coming to Malaysia, we all go, “YEAH!” If you’ve been to Taiwan or Thailand, you’ll know that FamilyMart is a direct competitor to 7-Eleven—sometimes, you can see them just a few shops away from each other.

When that occurs, tourists like us would like to go FamilyMart, simply because it’s a new experience. FamilyMart (in case some of us still think that it’s a Thailand brand) is a Japanese convenience store chain, and the region it serves is primarily in Asia, with most of us coming across it in Taiwan and Thailand.

According to Asian Review, Malaysia company QL Resources has got the licence to operate the FamilyMart franchise in Malaysia and has set a goal of opening its first outlet in KL by the end of 2016, and then launching another 300 outlets in the country in the next five years.

So, here’s the question: why should Singaporeans be excited? Because, well, based on what we see, whatever comes to Malaysia will also come to Singapore. To many businesses, they often see the region of Malaysia as “Malaysia + Singapore”, or in some instances, “KL + Singapore”.

This is due to the cultural similarities—you can’t really tell the differences between a Singaporean and a Malaysian (especially if he or she is from KL) as once upon a time, we, or our parents and grandparents, once held the same passport. Now, why is it good? Think about it: 7-Eleven and Cheers have been dominating the market for so long.

With FamilyMart joining the competition, they’ll all have to up their games—whether it’s to provide better service, better products or even better price. The competition will definitely benefit the consumers.

But what if they don’t come over to Singapore? No worries lah—at least JB will have FamilyMart, and we’ll benefit when we go north to JB during the weekends. After all, which Singaporean doesn’t go to Malaysia often?

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Top Image: TungCheung / Shutterstock.com

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com