Japan’s hottest souvenir? A $2 pair of striped socks from a convenience store

By Lilit Marcus, CNN

Tokyo (CNN) — A group of tourists follows their guide into the building, where he explains the history and context of what they’re seeing, translating signs from Japanese into English.

Wide-eyed in awe, the travelers politely ask if it’s OK to touch things and take pictures. Finally, they’re given free rein to wander around on their own, and they purchase gifts for loved ones back home.

This isn’t a Shinto temple. It’s a Japanese konbini, or convenience store, called FamilyMart.

These tours are the brainchild of Serkan Toso, founder of the Japanese restaurant booking platform byFood, who was inspired by the thousands of social media videos he saw of tourists exploring konbinis and reviewing the different snacks. He realized there was an opportunity and hired Ryo Ito to give the company’s (and possibly Japan’s) first-ever konbini tours.

Ito, a Tokyo native, thinks there’s nothing unusual about popping into a konbini multiple times per day, whether to grab a household item he needs like a toothbrush or buy some onigiri for lunch. His tours take small groups into multiple konbinis, plus a grocery store and a department store, over the course of an afternoon.

For Ito, who has moved back to Japan after a few years in Hawaii, these tours aim “to tell the story of how we use the konbini in Japan, and how it’s related to our life.”

According to data from Expedia.com, 39% of travelers visit grocery stores or supermarkets while on vacation, and 44% are specifically shopping for local goods they can’t get at home.

The big three brands in Japan’s convenience-store market are 7-Eleven, Lawson’s, and FamilyMart. Of these, 7-Eleven is the biggest by footprint, with FamilyMart second.

FamilyMart’s first location opened in Sayama City, about 25 miles northwest of Tokyo, in 1973. Now, the brand says it has 16,400 stores in Japan and about 8,400 stores in other markets, including Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Competition among konbini brands is fierce in Japan. But overtourism and the rise of social media have also made them hot spots for tourists and influencers.

Many of Ito’s guests ask him to recommend konbini “hacks” — fun, customized combinations of convenience-store products. He says one of his go-tos is a serving of canned coffee poured over ice, with pudding added on top. These are called arenji, or remixes, in Japanese.

Foreign visitors are getting in on the action, remixing Famichiki, a flat, breaded fried chicken cutlet that is one of FamilyMart’s biggest sellers.

TikTok displays endless variations of Famichiki mashups, including wedging the cutlet between two pancakes for a sweet-savory mix or sticking them inside a cheeseburger for a decadent, American-inspired meal.

Putting the convenience in convenience store

Kahlen Cheung, a Hong Kong native, believes it’s not a trip to Japan without a konbini visit.

“My experience with FamilyMart is always positive,” she says. Cheung goes to Japan two or three times per year, and on her latest visit she made a series of Instagram videos documenting her trip, including one showing off her FamilyMart haul.

“It’s probably, like, the first place that everybody will go to in Japan. You’ve just touched down, you’re hungry, you want breakfast. The first thing you think of is a convenience store.”

Cheung’s go-to item is the egg sandwich, or sando, which she remixes with a Famichiki.

Caryn Ng, co-author of “Konbini: Cult recipes, stories and adventures from Japan’s iconic convenience stores,” says she’s not at all surprised to hear about the tours offered on byFood.

But before they became attractions in their own right, Ng says, foreign tourists visited convenience stores out of, well, convenience.

“Back in the not-too-distant past, the konbini was one of the few places a tourist could go to withdraw cash mid-journey. It was the destination you could duck into to get an onigiri, sando, drink and quick snack before hopping on the Shinkansen.”

Sure enough, konbinis located close to major tourist spots — such as those in Tokyo Station — often stock magnets, keychains and other souvenirs alongside the usual bottles of tea and packs of tissues.

For Americans, who are used to big-box stores with dozens of brands of even basic products like dish soap, the streamlined elegance of a konbini is as much a peek into the Japanese way of life as a visit to a traditional tea house.

“For me,” says Ng, “the konbini is an attraction in itself. The allure of the konbini perhaps lies in its size and curation. It isn’t overwhelming. It’s a slice of Japanese life within a compact, perfect, neat space.”

Socking away the secret

Beyond the Famichiki, FamilyMart’s quest for dominance has been boosted by a surprising non-food item: a humble pair of tube socks.

In 2021, FamilyMart became the first of the big three konbini to launch its own clothing line. It hired Hiromichi Ochiai, Japanese-born founder of indie clothing label Facetasm, as its creative director.

A few years later, FamilyMart launched Convenience Wear. The products were simple — underwear, T-shirts, and socks — but well made. They were devoid of logos, but many sported simple stripes in the brand’s recognizable electric-blue and green colors. Called “line socks” because of the stripe design, they cost 390 yen (about $2).

They were an instant hit.

According to culture magazine Monocle, the white unisex tube socks sold 1.4 million pairs in their first year on the market.

Ochiai told the magazine that he and his team considered more than just aesthetics when designing the socks. The fabric has antibacterial and deodorizing properties, plus they are sold in a reusable plastic bag that is just the right size for toting mini-sized toiletries at the airport.

“Conventionally, apparel sold at convenience stores was mainly purchased for urgent needs,” a representative from FamilyMart tells CNN. “However, by developing products with a focus on quality and design, we wanted to create a new culture of buying clothing at a convenience store. To do this, we developed items under the concept of ‘good materials, good techniques, and good design,’ ensuring everyday usability for all ages.”

One of the socks’ fans is CNN Style producer Oscar Holland.

He admits that FamilyMart isn’t his favorite of the konbini chains. But the allure of the socks proved too strong to resist.

“I wear shorts a lot, living in a tropical climate, and it’s just a little bit more exciting than a pair of plain white socks without going full novelty,” says Holland, who is based in Singapore. He also likes that the lack of an obvious logo means that only fellow in-the-know consumers can tell where his socks are from. “If someone says, ‘Are those the FamilyMart socks?’ it’s a nice little conversation starter.”

Ironically, he hasn’t been to Japan to purchase a pair of his own. Instead, he’s bought them from online resellers or has friends pick up pairs when they travel.

To keep fans coming back for more, FamilyMart periodically launches new colors (black and gray socks are now available) and has partnered with pop culture properties like “Stranger Things” and “The Simpsons” on limited-edition pairs.

Just like when big sneaker brands announce a “drop,” hardcore Line Sock aficionados will race around Japan trying to score a pair of new FamilyMart socks, documenting their experiences — and later their bragging rights — on social media.

Convenience Wear has also expanded into sweatshirts and carryall bags. The line includes tenugui, the ubiquitous cloth towels that Japanese people use for anything from drying their hands to collecting crumbs. These items are simple, but they give a miniature lesson in Japanese etiquette and culture.

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