Store Names in Thailand

Picture of a store with a familiar sounding name

Shopping in Thailand has changed in the last 40 years.  It used to be all mom and pop stores along the road.  Now there are modern malls and chain stores in the big cities.  Sister Meeker thought these two pictures indicate the amount of name copying that is going on. 

Baan and Beyond is just like it sounds a clone of Bed, Bath and Beyond. The word "baan" in Thai means house or home. What is interesting to me is the large sign in English with the Thai name of the store in Thai letters upper left of the sign. The Thai name is just like the English name sounded out "baan and beyond".  It is not the words that mean "and Beyond."


For the office supply store - it is not office depot but Office Mate.  Name in the upper right corner (Thai characters) says offid mait.  There are no c or s sound at the end of words. 

Another store is Home Pro.  A clone of Home Depot right down to the orange aprons for the sales and help staff.  The big difference is the qty of help staff hanging around.  Probably three to four times as many as you would find back home.  Easy to find help.  Although from Sister Meeker's experience - they do not speak English very well.  So what they do is go get their associate who they think speaks English better.

In addition Sister Meeker thinks I should mention 7/11 stores.  They are literally everywhere.  There are probably 5 within a few minutes walk from our condo.  In fact for the first month we were here there was another one on the first floor of our condo bldg.  It is now closed.  They have pretty much all of your basic needs and the prices are very competitive.  We buy our milk, bread, eggs and other staples there for the most part. 

Why are there so many  7/11s? One blogger stated that there are  "two kinds of answers: One is that Thai people don't like to walk (far), and ..... there is enough business for all of the shops."

   "At the end of the year 2012, the Company had a total of 6,822 7-Eleven stores nationwide. Of the total, 3,177 stores are in Bangkok and vicinity (47 percent) and 3,645 stores are in provincial areas (53 percent). Presently, an average of 8.3 million customers visit 7-Eleven stores each day."