Supermarket
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Exterior of typical European supermarket (a Tesco Extra) |
A
supermarket is a departmentalized self-service
store offering a wide variety of
food and household merchandise. It is larger in size and has a wider selection than a traditional
grocery store.
The supermarket typically comprises meat, produce, dairy, and baked goods departments along with shelf space reserved for canned and packaged goods as well as for various nonfood items such as household cleaners, pharmacy products, and pet supplies. Most supermarkets also sell a variety of other household products that are consumed regularly, such as
alcohol (where permitted), household cleaning products,
medicine,
clothes, and some sell a much wider range of non-food products.
The traditional supermarket occupies a large floor space on a single level and is situated near a residential area in order to be convenient to consumers. Its basic appeal is the availability of a broad selection of goods under a single roof at relatively low prices. Other advantages include ease of parking and, frequently, the convenience of shopping hours that extend far into the evening. Supermarkets usually make massive outlays for newspaper and other advertising and often present elaborate in-store displays of products. Supermarkets are often part of a
chain that owns or controls (sometimes by
franchise) other supermarkets located in the same or other towns; this increases the opportunities for
economies of scale.
In
North America, supermarket chains are often supplied from the
distribution centers of a larger business, such as
Loblaw Companies in Canada, which owns thousands of supermarkets across the nation. They have a distribution center in every
province — usually in the largest city in the province.
Supermarkets usually offer products at low prices by reducing
margins. Certain products (typically staples such as bread, milk and sugar) are often sold as
loss leaders, that is, with negative margins. To maintain a
profit, supermarkets attempt to make up for the low margins with a high overall volume of sales, and with sales of higher-margin items. Customers usually shop by putting their products into
shopping carts (trolleys) or baskets (self-service) and pay for the products at the
check-out. At present, many supermarket chains are trying to reduce labor costs further by shifting to
self-service check-out machines, where a group of four or five machines is supervised by a single assistant.
A larger full-service supermarket combined with a
department store is sometimes known as a
hypermarket. Other services that supermarkets may have include
banks,
cafés,
creches, photo development,
pharmacies, and/or
gas stations.
In the early days of retailing, all products had to be fetched by an assistant from shelves on one side of a counter while the customers stood on the other side and pointed to what they wanted. Also, many foods did not come in the individually wrapped consumer-size packages taken for granted today, so an assistant had to measure out the precise amount desired by the consumer. These practices were obviously labor-intensive and therefore quite expensive.
The concept of a self-service grocery store was developed by
Clarence Saunders and his
Piggly Wiggly stores.
A&P was the most successful of the early chains in
Canada and the
United States, having become common in North American cities in the
1920s. The general trend in retail since then has been to stack shelves at night and let the customers get their own goods and bring them to the front of the store to pay for them. Although there is a higher risk of
shoplifting, the costs of appropriate security measures will be ideally outweighed by the economies of scale and reduced labor costs.
According to the
Smithsonian Institution, the first true supermarket in the United States was opened by ex-
Kroger employee
Michael J. Cullen, on
August 4,
1930, in a 6,000 square foot (560 m²) former garage in
Jamaica, Queens,
New York.
[Anonymous, "The place where supermarketing was born," Mass Market Retailers 19, no. 9 (17 June 2002): 172.] The store,
King Kullen, following
King Kong, operated under the slogan "Pile it high. Sell it low." When Cullen died in 1936, there were seventeen stores in operation.
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A Safeway advertisement from the 50's |
Existing grocery chains like Kroger and Safeway at first resisted Cullen's idea, but eventually were forced to build their own supermarkets as the North American economy sank further into the
Great Depression and consumers became price-sensitive to a degree never seen before.
[Ryan Mathews, "1926-1936: entrepreneurs and enterprise: a look at industry pioneers like King Kullen and J. Frank Grimes, and the institution they created (Special Report: Social Change & the Supermarket)," Progressive Grocer 75, no. 12 (December 1996): 39-43.] Kroger took the idea one step farther and pioneered the first supermarket surrounded on all four sides by a parking lot.
Supermarkets proliferated in Canada and the United States, along with
suburban areas after
World War II. At present, North American supermarkets are often co-located with smaller retailers in
strip malls and are generally regional rather than national. Kroger is probably the closest thing to a national chain in the United States but has preserved most of its regional brands like
Ralphs,
City Market and
King Soopers. In Canada the largest food
retailer is
Loblaw Companies. Loblaw Companies operates grocery stores across Canada under a variety of regional names such as
Fortinos,
Zehrs and the largest
Loblaws (named after the company itself). Sobeys is Canada's second largest supermarket with locations across the country, all under the same name. In the UK
Tesco is the largest chain of supermarkets followed by
ASDA and
Sainsburys.
In
Britain,
France and other countries, the proliferation of out-of-town supermarkets has been blamed for the disappearance of smaller, local grocery stores and for increased dependency on the
motor car (and the consequent traffic). In particular, some critics consider the practice of selling
loss leaders to be anti-competitive, and are also wary of the negotiating power large retailers have with suppliers. Supermarkets are found around the world in dozens of countries.
It was formerly common for supermarkets to give
trading stamps. Today, most supermarkets issue store-specific "members cards," "club cards," or "
loyalty cards" which are scanned at the register when the customer goes to check-out. Typically, several items are given special discounts if the credit card-like devices are used.
Today supermarkets face price competition from discount retailers such as
Wal-Mart and
Zellers (non-
union labor and greater buying power) and warehouse stores such as
Costco (savings in bulk quantities).
Supermarkets have been criticised by authors such as
Joanna Blythman. Such criticism raises the question of where one should shop instead. Small stores, such as bakers, green grocers or groceries, are examples, but this can be difficult if such outlets are not available in one's locality. Buying from
markets or direct from farmers have also been proposed as alternatives.
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Supermarket check out |
Larger supermarkets in the North America and the Europe typically sell many different types of items, such as:
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Alcoholic products (where provincial/state and/or local laws allow; individual state and province control as to
beer,
wine,)
* Baby foods and products
* Bakery
*
books,
Newspapers, and
magazines, including
supermarket tabloids
* Car care products
*
CDs,
DVDs, and
videos (including
video rentals)
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Confectionery*
Cosmetics* Clothing and
footwear *
Dairy products
*
Diet foods
* Electrical items
*
Feminine hygiene products
* Financial services (
mortgages,
credit cards,
savings accounts,
wire transfers, etc.)
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Flowers
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Frozen foods
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Fruits and
vegetables
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Greeting cards
* Housecleaning products
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Luggage*
Lottery tickets
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Meat* Medicines and
first aid items (mostly over-the-counter, some supermarkets have pharmacies)
* Non alcoholic beverages, such as refreshments and
water* Personal financial products
* Personal hygiene and grooming products
*
Pet foods and products
*
Snacks*
Toys
In other countries, the range of products is sometimes more narrowly focused on food products, although the ranges sold are broadening in many countries as average store sizes increase.
Most supermarkets are similar in design and layout due to trends in
marketing. Produce tends to be near the entrance of the store. Milk, bread, and other essential items may be located in the rear or other out of the way places. This is purposely done to ensure maximum time spent in the store, strolling past other items and capitalizing on
impulse buying. The front of the store or Front-End is where one might find
point of sale machines or cash registers. Many retailers have implemented
self-checkout devices in their stores in an attempt to reduce labor costs.
Supermarkets have not escaped criticism from authors such as
Joanna Blythman. Such criticism leads on to the question of where one should stop instead. Buying from markets has been proposed as an alternative.
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List of supermarkets for chains past and present
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Point of sale*
Distribution*
List of marketing topics*
Asian supermarket*
Marketing*
Retail*
Retailers' cooperative*
Shopping cart (trolley)*
Shopping hours*William Greer,
America the Bountiful: How the supermarket came to main street, Food Marketing Institute, 1986. ISBN 999925568X
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Arguements for and against supermarkets*
Supermarket chain - SNIW, a French company and supermarket supplier
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groceteria.com - supermarket history and architecture from the 1920s to the 1970s
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Scrambling for customers, 4 Aug 2005,
San Francisco Chronicle*
Supermarket background and history*
What's Wrong With Supermarkets? - Corporate Watch give an analysis of the implications of supermarkets on society
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Walmart - The world's largest supermarket
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Tesco - Britain's Tesco, one of the world's largest supermarkets
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Sainsbury - Sainsbury, also well known in Britain
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Aldi - Aldi, one of Europe's largest supermarkets with origins in Germany
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Carrefour - Carrefour, another one of Europe's largest supermarkets, from France
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Mercadona - Mercadona, Spain's largest supermarket
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Migros - Migros, the number 1 in Switzerland
