Walk two blocks in Waikiki and you will pass three ABC Stores.
Not three different chains. Three of the same one.
Sometimes they are across the street from each other. Sometimes you can stand in one doorway and see the next sign.
Every business school would call this a mistake. You are cannibalizing your own sales. You are splitting traffic between your own locations. You are paying rent twice for the same customer.
And yet it is one of the most successful retail strategies in the state.
Because the logic is not about sales per store. It is about something else entirely.
Once you understand what they are actually buying with all that rent, you will see the same idea running through half the financial decisions you make.
Let me explain.