Japan’s biggest convenience store operator, Lawson, has found a brilliant solution to the country’s obstinate labor shortage: its first overseas remote worker to manage virtual store clerks. Through the use of high-tech avatar technology, employees are able to provide services for Japanese customers from time zones worldwide.
Lawson Pilots 24/7 Service with Remote-Controlled Avatars
It’s more or less a video call, but the customer interacts with animated avatars rather than seeing the actual clerk. Through camera technology, the movements of the remote operator are replicated through the avatar to make the experience more engaging for customers. It is an unusual approach, but it offers a practical solution for keeping stores running around the clock.
The timing of this initiative is crucial, as a recent Nikkei survey revealed that 62.5% of franchise owners struggled with staffing their stores for 24/7 operation last year. Lawson’s response to this challenge began with hiring a Japanese national living in Sweden to operate their first overseas virtual cashier.Â
This configuration artfully exploits the time difference of eight hours between the two locations, so that the remote worker can work an overnight shift in Japan when it is day in Sweden. The avatar is located on screens at Lawson stores in Tokyo and Osaka, where it mainly helps customers complete self-checkout.
The company’s future strategy is to have Lawson President Sadanobu Takemasu expand this off-site workforce to other time zones, such as Brazil and New York. It will increase efficiency in operations through the use of labor markets located in regions where there is a large time difference from Japan to create a global workforce for local stores.
The Human Touch in the Digital Age
The Avita, Tokyo-based startup teamed up with Lawson in 2022, but this virtual clerk technology was not deployed at that time. At the end of 2024, it was already being used in 28 stores across Japan’s major cities, and more than 70 employees had been trained to use the virtual clerks.Â
The preliminary results are encouraging; the avatar system, according to Lawson, saves more than 90 minutes of staffing time per store per day.
It responds to an even deeper problem afflicting Japan: a very acute labor shortage due to its declining population. Many businesses still face worker shortages in so-called irregular jobs, including part-time and low-wage positions.Â
Avatars have been introduced as clerks, but the issue remains, with 37.5 percent of store operators still anticipating having to cope with staffing woes over the fiscal year ending in March.
Lawson’s avatar clerk program is a creative way of maintaining Japan’s famous convenience store culture, even in the face of demographic realities. The company is pioneering a new model for retail operations that could influence how businesses worldwide approach staffing challenges in the future with the help of technology through geographical gaps.Â
While the cartoon avatars that are helping customers seem to be something taken from a cartoon movie, this might be the norm in Japan’s retail industry for years to come as the country continues to face its workforce problems.
