7-ELEVEN, exclusively licensed by Philippine Seven Corporation (PSC), opened recently its 3,000th store in the Philippines last Sunday, July 11, 2021.
Located along Lawa Road, Meywoods Subdivision, Meycauayan, Bulacan, the store is part of PSC’s strategic thrust to open more 7-Eleven stores in residential communities. It is also the first modular store opened by 7-Eleven.
During their Annual Stockholders’ Meeting, PSC President and CEO Victor Paterno said they’ve spent much of this year working on how to bring more essentials to their customers. Customers’ needs are evolving so we’re also evolving since our mission is to provide for our customers’ ever-changing needs, and things have changed tremendously during this pandemic.”
He said that they’ve already seen since the middle of last year that the pandemic will be a longer-term thing, and he believes the company is better prepared than most in this situation.
“What’s important is meeting our relative position, meeting those changing needs, which is different from cutting costs. We are betting that with our changes, we’ve gotten a better idea where we want to be, and we will be expanding again. We have more confidence in our new model, expanding again in pretty different areas that we were originally targeting. We’re glad we’re expanding because we will be expanding in different places,” Paterno said.
Now that they have opened their 3,000th store, Paterno said they are eyeing to add 250 more stores by the end of the year. “Of course it’s already the latter part of the year but that’s the target. We are experimenting with modular stores, which is what our 3,000th store is, that can be built in 30 days and costs much lesser than the regular stores. But we’re also looking at larger stores. We’re also looking at going to residential areas where rents are cheap, areas like in Calabarzon but of course we’ll also be opening in other areas as well.”
When asked about the strategy of going into community/residential areas and the possibility of competing with sari-sari stores, Paterno said there’s nobody who could compete with the sari-sari stores, themselves included. “They provide a degree of convenience that we could not match because they are very unique, and they’re so small we can’t compete with them,” he explained further.
The Meywoods store will bring grocery essentials and food closer to around 5,000 residents in the Meywoods Subdivision area. It will also carry 7-Eleven classics, like Slurpee, Big Bite Hotdog, Crunch Time Chicken, and its newly-launched City Café coffee.
MAIN PHOTO: (L-R): Francis Media, Special Projects Head; Liwayway Fernandez, Operations Director; Richard Dela Cruz, Brgy. Chairman Meywoods Subdivision, Meycuayan, Bulacan; Victor Paterno, PSC President and CEO; Richard Lee, PSC Chief Operating Officer; Ulysses Borral, PSC Business Development Division Head; and Cyril Noche, District Manager – North Central Zone Manager.