Like many people in Japan, Erwin Dwight Paler visits convenience stores for a variety of reasons — to buy coffee perhaps, or to withdraw money from an ATM, or just to pick up snacks and various daily necessities.

"Because it's 24 hours a day, people are so used to having them around," said Paler, a Philippine national of Japanese descent who like many of the roughly 127 million people in Japan embrace the "convenience culture" derived from 43,000 such stores.

But stakeholders are urging Seven-Eleven Japan Co., the nation's largest convenience store chain, to rethink its business model so it can survive the tough retail competition spawned by the global economic slump.