Supermarkets

History

Before the supermarket, buying groceries was a slow, labor-intensive experience. Grocery store customers would line up at a counter and they would ask a clerk for what they wanted to buy. This would entail the clerk measuring out the correct amount and packaging each item. Shopping at covered or open-air markets was a similar process but required multiple interactions with many market vendors.

At the turn of the 20th century, many grocery stores in the United States introduced self-service. Clarence Saunders opened the Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916 and was one of the first retailers to introduce self-service. Self-service grocery stores are the roots of the modern supermarket. Self-service meant a major reduction of labor and also gave shoppers the opportunity to handle the goods and compare them with others. The first self-service grocery stores did not sell perishable goods, such as meat and fish.

The first supermarket was opened on August 4, 1930, by Michael J. Cullen in Jamaica Queens in New York City. What differentiated Cullen's King Kullen store (who's name was inspired by the film King Kong) from the self-service grocery was its size, the logic of the store layout, and the presence of a [Page 880]parking lot. The layout of the supermarket ushers the shopper through a maze in which they are exposed to as many products as possible—the customer circulates through the entire store. Shopping carts were also introduced so that shoppers could easily cover the distance and buy as much as they liked without struggling. Many brands of the same item are carried in supermarkets, and shoppers can compare products and prices. Modern marketing and merchandizing developed alongside the supermarket; customers had to be able to recognize a brand and its qualities in order to select it over another similar product. Once a shopper has finished selecting goods, the final destination is the checkout. This is one of the few places where the shopper has contact with other people, either waiting in line or talking to the cashier. In most of the original supermarkets, the cashier or a helper bagged the groceries.

Growth and Effects

Borrowing from the principles of Taylorism, supermarkets quickly increased sales and reaped the benefits of economies of scale. Many grocery store chains morphed into supermarkets, such as the A&P (the Great Atlantic Tea Company), which is still in existence in the early 21st century. As supermarket chains grew, regional distribution centers developed. Chains could buy large quantities of goods at discounted prices and pass these savings along to shoppers. Margins were slim, but the sales volumes were high. Cullen's original sales mantra, “Pile it high. Sell it low,” embodied this idea.

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