Hypermarket
A hypermarket (sometimes called a hyperstore, supercentre, or superstore) is a
Hypermarkets, like other big-box stores, typically have business models focusing on high-volume, low-margin sales. Typically covering an area of 5,000 to 15,000 square metres (54,000 to 161,000 sq ft), they generally have more than 200,000 different brands of merchandise available at any one time. Because of their large footprints, many hypermarkets choose suburban or out-of-town locations that are easily accessible by automobile.
History
Canada
Loblaws established its Real Canadian Superstore chain in 1979. It sells mainly groceries, while also retailing clothing, electronics and housewares. Its largest competitor in Canada is Walmart. These are the two major Canadian hypermarkets.
Europe
The Belgian retailer
In France, hypermarkets are generally situated in
After the successes of super- and hyper-markets and amid fears that smaller stores would be forced out of business, France enacted laws that made it more difficult to build hypermarkets and also restricted the amount of economic leverage that hypermarket chains can impose upon their suppliers (the Loi Galland).
Japan
The predecessor to
In Japanese, hypermarkets are known as 総合スーパー (Sougou Suupaa, General Merchandise Stores). There is a distinction in Japanese between スーパー (Supers) and デパート (Departs) with the former being discounters, but the latter selling luxury brand clothing and quite often high-end groceries as well.
Hypermarkets may be found in urban areas as well as less populated areas. The Japanese government encourages hypermarket installations, as mutual investment by financial stocks are a common way to run hypermarkets. Japanese hypermarkets may contain restaurants,
United States
Until the 1980s, large stores combining food and non-food items were unusual in the United States, although early predecessors existed since the first half of the 20th century.[7] The term "hypermarket" itself is still rarely used in the US.
The
The Midwest (then grocery) chain Meijer, which today operates about 235 stores in six US states, coined the term "super center",[9] and opened the first of its hypermarket format store in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in June 1962, under the brand name "Thrifty Acres".[10][11]
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the three major US
In the early 1990s, US hypermarkets also began selling fuel. The idea was first introduced in the 1960s, when a number of supermarket chains and retailers like Sears tried to sell fuel, but it didn't generate sufficient consumer interest at the time. Today there are approximately 4,500 hypermarket stores in the US selling fuel, representing an estimated 14 billion US gallons (53 billion litres) sold each year.[15]
Australia
In Australia, hypermarkets were at their peak during the 1980s. This was especially prevalent during the era of South African owned Pick n Pay Stores and a now discontinued format of Kmart Australia Stores known as Super Kmart. This trend in the Australian market soon lost its appeal into the 1990s. Super Kmart stores were discontinued and Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Stores opened in the former location. Pick n Pay continued to operate in Australia until the 2000s when their locations at Aspley and Sunnybank Hills were converted into Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Department Stores.
As of 2022, the only hypermarket or Big-Box Store operational in Australia are Costco Wholesale Warehouses with currently thirteen stores in Australia - four stores in Melbourne, three stores in Sydney, two stores in Brisbane and one store each in Newcastle, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth, with construction underway on the fourteenth store in Queensland's Gold Coast. There were plans for German hypermarket company Kaufland to open stores in Australia announced in 2019; these plans were cancelled in 2020.
Iran
Hypermarkets did not exist in Iran until 2009 (1388 ه.ش.). Before that, there were some local hypermarkets, but international branches were nonexistent. Despite their late arrival, hypermarkets in Iran have achieved a significant degree of growth. The first branch was opened in Tehran under the name of Iran Hyperstar through a collaboration between Carrefour and Majid Al Futtaim Group based in The United Arab Emirates. The Emirati holding is the main shareholder with about 75% of the company's shares. New branches were established after Iran Hyperstar’s first store found relative success. Now, other branches have been established in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Ahvaz, etc.[16]
Size
The average
Future
Despite its success, the hypermarket business model may be under threat from online shopping and the shift towards customization according to analysts like Sanjeev Sanyal, Deutsche Bank's Global Strategist, until 2015.[20] Sanyal has argued that some developing countries such as India may omit the hypermarket stage and directly go online.[21]
Warehouse club
Another category of stores sometimes included in the hypermarket category are the membership-based
However, warehouse clubs differ from hypermarkets in that they have sparse interior decor and require paid membership. In addition, warehouse clubs usually sell bigger packages and have fewer choices in each category of items.
See also
References
- ^ Staff, Investopedia (2007-06-24). "Hypermarket". Investopedia. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
- ^ Grimmeau 2013, p. 3.
- ^ Grimmeau 2013, pp. 1–3.
- ^ Grimmeau 2013, pp. 2, 7.
- ISBN 2-200-37263-9, Colin (publisher).
- ^ "Bernardo Trujillo, l'accoucheur des grandes surfaces". Les Echos. 8 December 1999. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
- ^ Grimmeau 2013, p. 8.
- ^ FundingUniverse: Fred Meyer Stores, Inc. History Linked 2014-01-09
- ^ Meijer website: Our Company Archived 2014-02-07 at the Wayback Machine Linked 2014-01-09
- ^ Meijer website: Our History Linked 2014-01-09 Archived 2014-01-25 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Column: Meijer's first Super center past its prime but full of good memories". MLive.com. 12 October 2008. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
- ^ "Walmart Corporate - We save people money so they can live better". Retrieved 30 July 2015.
- ^ "Sears Holdings Corporation - Corporate Website". Archived from the original on 20 October 2008. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
- ^ Target website: Target through the years Linked 2014-01-09
- ^ The History of Gasoline Retailing Archived 2011-03-24 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "تاریخچه هایپراستار؛ همه چیز درباره بزرگترین فروشگاه زنجیره ای – فرصت امروز". forsatnet.ir (in Persian). Retrieved 2023-04-16.
- ^ Paul Ausick (22 March 2014). "Walmart Now Has Six Types of Stores". 24/7 Wall Street. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
- New York Times. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
- ^ La situation du commerce en 2014 [The situation of commerce in 2014] (PDF) (Report) (in French). INSEE. 18 December 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
- ^ "Sanjeev Sanyal on The Customization Revolution - Project Syndicate". Project Syndicate. 22 March 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
- ^ "Sanjeev Sanyal on Clicks over Bricks in India - Project Syndicate". Project Syndicate. 5 October 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
- ^ Robert Spector, "Carrefour enters U.S. via share in Costco", Supermarket News, January 1985.
Bibliography
- Grimmeau, Jean-Pierre (10 June 2013). "A forgotten anniversary: the first European hypermarkets open in Brussels in 1961". Brussels Studies (67). ISSN 2031-0293. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
External links
- Media related to Supermarkets at Wikimedia Commons