Overview

• 7-Eleven began testing multiple robots on September 9 at its company-operated Arakawa Nishiogu 7-Chome store in Tokyo’s Arakawa Ward.
• Robots are tasked with restocking beverage shelves and cleaning windows and floors, targeting routine work that staff currently perform daily.
• The company projects roughly a 30% reduction in certain employee workloads during the experiment, according to operations head Hiroki Takei.
• The test site also features self-checkout with remote customer support that provides multilingual assistance for shoppers.
• The in-store pilot follows pavement delivery-robot trials in Tokyo that run until February 2026, reflecting wider retail automation as Japan faces a prolonged worker shortfall.