Beyond Opening New Stores: How Else Can Retail Chains Grow?
Between 2018 and 2025, the number of convenience stores in Japan barely changed, yet sales hit a record for the fourth year in a row. For retail chains in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia, opening new stores is still the most visible way to grow. But leading convenience store chains in Japan and South Korea point to other drivers: selling more per store, protecting margins and cutting excess stock. All of them depend on systems.
About this analysis: Figures come from statistics agencies, industry associations, industry reports and a Harvard Business School case study. Japan and South Korea were chosen because their chains run small, dense store networks and are many years ahead of Vietnam.
Where is Vietnam’s retail market today?
There is still plenty of room to grow. In the first nine months of 2026, Vietnam’s total retail sales of goods and consumer services rose 13.4% (National Statistics Office). Modern trade accounts for only 35–40% of sales in cities and 15–20% in rural areas (Kantar Worldpanel). Pharmacy chains alone have passed 4,000 stores (Q&Me).
So opening stores remains a priority for many chains. The question to ask alongside it: how much value is the chain getting from the stores it already has?
How do leading chains in Japan and South Korea grow beyond store count?
Japan: selling more per store. The number of convenience stores dipped from 58,340 in 2018 to 56,054 in 2025, yet sales at existing stores still grew 1.1% in 2024 (Japan Franchise Association). Seven-Eleven Japan runs on tanpin kanri, or item-by-item management: each store tracks every item to decide what to order and what to drop. Harvard Business School describes it as the core of how the chain operates, cutting inventory and lifting margins. In 2004, Seven-Eleven Japan’s average sales per store were about 31% higher than its competitors’ average.
Japan: lower costs through demand-based ordering. Lawson uses AI to recommend order quantities for all of its stores. Lower costs from this system were part of the reason Lawson’s operating profit rose 7.6% in the first half of fiscal 2026.
South Korea: doing more with existing stores. In 2025, the four largest chains had 53,266 stores, fewer than the year before, and total sales grew just 0.1%. Yet sales per store still edged up. According to Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, chains shifted their focus to strengthening existing stores and pushing private-label products. To know which stores to keep and which to invest in, a chain needs profit and loss figures for every store.
Why do these drivers all need an ERP system?
The results of opening a new store are easy to see. Selling better in each store has to be measured. In 2004, each Seven-Eleven Japan store served an average of 986 customers a day. Multiply that by hundreds of stores and thousands of items, and no spreadsheet can keep up.
- Sales per store: know how each item sells in each store, using one shared product catalog.
- Margins: know which stores and which items make money, including private labels. Revenue, cost of goods and expenses must be recorded per store.
- Inventory: order based on demand, not habit. Forecasts, including AI forecasts, are only as accurate as the data behind them.
POS shows what a store sold. But cost of goods, expenses, inventory and purchase orders sit in the ERP. Only when the two are connected can a chain see the real profit of each store and each item. Software does not create good management on its own, but without this data, that kind of management is not possible.
What does SAP provide, and what does TDI APJ add?
SAP provides the platform. SAP S/4HANA Retail manages the product catalog, assortments, pricing and promotions on one shared data foundation. It also includes tools for demand forecasting and store replenishment.
TDI APJ puts that platform to work. TDI APJ is an SAP partner and has implemented SAP for large retail chains across Southeast Asia.
- RetailPlus: a pre-configured solution on SAP S/4HANA Retail, delivered through RISE with SAP. It covers merchandise, purchasing and replenishment, pricing and promotions, store operations, warehousing and finance. Sales and payment data from POS flows into accounting automatically.
- Phased rollout: large chains can move groups of stores to SAP in waves while finance stays in one place.
- RetailPlus FrontOffice (RPFO): a POS system built by TDI APJ that connects to SAP, e-invoicing and e-commerce marketplaces. Stores can keep selling when the internet goes down.
- TDI AI Studio: TDI APJ’s AI development hub, where SAP Retail consultants and AI engineers work together. AI applications are designed around each chain’s own problems, not sold as a fixed package. They use the sales, inventory and pricing data already in SAP, then send recommendations back to SAP for the operations team to review and apply.
Where should a retail chain start?
There is no store-count threshold. Watch for three signs: store figures are compiled by hand, prices and promotions differ from store to store, and no one can quickly say which stores are profitable. Any one of these is a signal to review your systems, alongside your expansion plans.
Sources: Vietnam National Statistics Office, Oct 2026 · Kantar Worldpanel via ACBS, Feb 2026 · Q&Me, 2026 · Japan Franchise Association via NACS · Japan Franchise Association via Jiji, Jan 2026 · Japan Franchise Association via NACS, 2025 · Harvard Business School, Tanpin Kanri: Retail Practice at Seven-Eleven Japan · Jiji, Nov 2025 · Jiji, Oct 2026 · Korea Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy via Kyunghyang, Jan 2026 · Korea Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy via Asia Economy, Feb 2026 · SAP Learning