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Market Disrupted: How Piggly Wiggly Revolutionized Grocery Shopping
Mental Floss ^ | no idea | Jeff Wells

Posted on 05/29/2017 11:37:17 AM PDT by Lorianne

Walking the aisles of your local supermarket may feel like a pretty mundane task. But 100 years ago, it was downright revolutionary. On September 6, 1916, hundreds of curious shoppers came out for the opening of a new grocery store at 79 Jefferson Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. A festive atmosphere greeted them, complete with a beauty contest and a brass band. Smartly dressed employees handed out flowers to the ladies and balloons to children. The store—located on a busy commercial stretch just three blocks east of the river—was the perfect excuse for some afternoon shopping, and maybe a stroll along the waterfront. But what drew so many people that day wasn’t the location or the festivities. For weeks, they’d seen billboards and read newspaper ads about this grocery store with the funny name that promised an entirely new shopping experience—one that would, according to its owner, forever change the retail grocery business.

SETTING UP SHOP Up until that point, retail stores all operated according to the same model: Customers placed their order with a clerk, who would then gather and bag all their items and total up the cost. With its "self-service" model, the Piggly Wiggly on Jefferson Avenue would do away with the clerks and let customers do something they’d never done before: select the products themselves.

Upon entering the store, shoppers found themselves standing before a brightly lit showroom floor. After walking through a swinging door, they followed a pathway that led them through four aisles stacked high with more than 1000 products—everything from canned vegetables to cornflakes, bags of flour to jars of preserves. National brands like Campbell’s soup and Walker Baker & Co. chocolate bars sat within arms’ reach. For the first time, they could pick their own produce and weigh it on store scales. A refrigerator case with cabinet doors invited them to pick out a tub of butter or a bottle of milk. Instead of ordering flour by weight, to be measured out by a store employee, they found pre-bagged flour in neat stacks. All of the prices were clearly marked with tags hanging over each item, allowing customers to perform a side-by-side comparison of different brands.

Once they’d selected their goods, shoppers arrived at a counter where an employee manned an adding machine and a register. Cash was the only accepted payment method. After paying, shoppers then received something else many of them had never before seen: a printed receipt.

Grocery managers throughout Memphis thought the Piggly Wiggly was a joke. But the man behind the concept, successful businessman Clarence Saunders, was very serious. The Virginia native built his career in the cutthroat Memphis wholesaling business. He rose quickly through the ranks by excelling at two roles: salesman and business consultant. And he brought those skills to the Piggly Wiggly. Retail customers came to rely on Saunders’s considerable business acumen, along with the many products he offered. When paying a visit to stores, Saunders would often walk the floor with managers, pointing out where they should hang a sign or move a product to maximize sales.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

Saunders shrewdly surveyed the grocery industry, and what he saw was waste—wasted money, wasted space, and wasted time. Grocers had forged valuable relationships with their customers, but the quality of their goods was inconsistent at best. They also frequently neglected to list prices, which meant employees could (and often did) charge two customers two completely different amounts. Look at a clerk the wrong way, and he might upcharge you a few cents. And even though grocers offered helpful services like home delivery and store credit, they would typically charge a third above the manufacturer’s cost for each item—a grossly inflated markup, Saunders thought.

The biggest waste Saunders saw in the grocery industry was labor costs. Funneling every order through the store clerks meant long wait times during busy hours. When the store wasn’t busy, clerks were essentially paid to socialize with one another. Get rid of the counter clerks, Saunders thought, and you get more customers picking out more products at any given time, and without paying idle employees during slow hours. In newspaper ads for Piggly Wiggly, Saunders laid out the reasoning behind his self-service model (with a dash of humor):

"Piggly Wiggly knows its own business best and its business will be this: To have no store clerks gab and smirk while folks are standing around ten deep to get waited on. Every customer will be her own clerk, so if she wants to talk to a can of tomatoes and kill her time, all right and well—and it seems likely this might be a mighty lonesome chat."

The businessman also smartly linked his concept with blue-collar values and good old American self-sufficiency. Shoppers didn’t need to be waited on; if they wanted something, they should be able to reach out and take it. A pre-opening advertisement proclaimed, "Piggly Wiggly will be born in a few days … not with a silver spoon in his mouth but with a work shirt on his back."

THE BUSINESS OF CHANGE

Shoplifting was a concern—one his competitors frequently raised in ridiculing the self-service model. They found it preposterous, too, that Piggly Wiggly didn’t accept store credit, and didn’t offer home delivery. Saunders, though, believed people would follow the rules. Moreover, he believed shoppers would quickly adjust to Piggly Wiggly’s way of doing business because it offered lower prices and more, cleaner, higher-quality goods than competitors. "Your food at Piggly Wiggly will not be dropped on the floor, knocked over by the clerks; not scattered all over the delivery wagon nor stepped on," another advertisement read.

Some customers found the self-service model confusing, while others refused to go along with it. In another advertisement (Saunders was a voracious ad buyer), Saunders told the story of a shopper who refused to handle a stick of butter, and instead went across the street to a competing grocer, where she paid more to have the same product taken off the shelf and bagged for her.

Most people, however, were more than happy to do the work of shopping. They loved the wide selection of products—four times that of a typical grocery—and thought nothing of paying three cents to rent a basket to carry with them through the store (Saunders would eventually do away with this fee). They appreciated the price tags on display, and returned frequently to see if they had changed. They were quite pleased, too, with the low prices, which reflected just a 14 percent margin above the manufacturers’ costs.

NATIONWIDE BUY-IN

Everything about the Piggly Wiggly on Jefferson Avenue was ahead of its time, from the huge selection to the shopping baskets to the tiny hooks fixed over each product that allowed employees to quickly swap out price tags. Even the lighting—long, flat fixtures attached to the ceiling that illuminated every aisle—was revolutionary.

Within just a few months, Piggly Wiggly had sold $80,000 more than the average grocer did in the same time period, while also slashing business costs by more than two thirds.

Saunders had sky-high ambitions for his self-service grocery. Just weeks after opening the first Piggly Wiggly, he opened a second across town, calling it "Piggly Wiggly Junior." The next month he built a third location, which he gave the regal-sounding name "Piggly Wiggly the Third." In December of 1916, he opened "Piggly Wiggly the Fourth." Over the next two decades, The Pig, as it came to be known, spread across the South and the Midwest, eventually reaching more than 2500 stores by the 1930s. Competitors eventually caught up with the self-service format, and after various mergers and acquisitions Piggly Wiggly's reach was whittled down to the 600 or so that exist today. Saunders, unfortunately, wasn’t along for the ride. He exited the company in 1923 following a stock market fight in which he drove up the price of Piggly Wiggly’s stock and was deemed to have cornered the market. He opened a chain of stores under the name "Clarence Saunders, Sole Owner of My Name Stores," but struggled during the Great Depression and had to close. In 1937, he tried to reinvent the supermarket again with the Keedoozle, an automated format that quickly fizzled out. Convinced machines were the future of food retailing, he developed the Foodelectric, an even more complex system that would help customers decide what products they wanted to buy. It remained unfinished by the time he died, in 1953.

Despite his struggles late in life, Saunders had already paved the way for the modern supermarket. Innovations like the shopping basket, refrigerator case, and cash register became industry standards. On a larger scale, the self-service model helped groceries evolve from corner stores into high-volume, low-margin supermarkets. Products expanded as manufacturers vied for customers’ attention, and aisles quickly filled up with colorful packages, signs and other promotions. Brand recognition became big business as companies got rich selling everything from shaving cream to pancake batter.

Next time you're shopping, imagine, if you can, reaching out and grabbing that can of soup or that box of cereal for the first time. It might elevate the experience, if only just a little bit. It might even take you back a century to a small but mighty grocery store in Memphis, Tennessee.


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: food; pigglywiggly; retail
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To: Lorianne

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.


41 posted on 05/29/2017 3:51:39 PM PDT by YogicCowboy ("I am not entirely on anyone's side, because no one is entirely on mine." - JRRT)
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To: duckman

Pretty sure that’s a 59 Valiant on the left.


42 posted on 05/29/2017 3:54:03 PM PDT by RS_Rider (I hate Illinois Nazis)
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To: Defiant

No... Park and Robinson families.


43 posted on 05/29/2017 3:54:23 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: seowulf
Jot 'em Down Store? Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody: Jot 'Em Down Store
44 posted on 05/29/2017 4:02:58 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (My wish list: https, failover server, six sigma uptime.)
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To: Cementjungle

Did they have that jingle, “Meet me at the Acme where smart shoppers go” ?


45 posted on 05/29/2017 4:13:54 PM PDT by MayflowerMadam ("Negative people make healthy people sick." - Roger Ailes)
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To: MayflowerMadam

46 posted on 05/29/2017 4:16:46 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: Lorianne

CARNAC: Piggly Wiggly

McMAHON: Piggly Wiggly

Rip!

CARNAC: Describe Kermit the Frog’s wedding night.


47 posted on 05/29/2017 4:24:05 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Deplorables' Lives Matter)
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To: knarf

1932 - looks just like the store today in a nearby town.

Old joke - Piggly Wiggly is going to buy out HEB grocery (owner H. E. Butts). They’re going to call it Wiggly Butts.


48 posted on 05/29/2017 4:28:40 PM PDT by bgill (CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola.")
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To: ottbmare
They all do, now

Not the Walmart here.

49 posted on 05/29/2017 4:33:26 PM PDT by bgill (CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola.")
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To: Lorianne
The Pink Palace in Memphis (built as a mansion by Clarence Saunders) has a replica of the first Piggly Wiggly store.

One of the items on the shelves is mock turtle soup. Hard to find that in a store today.

50 posted on 05/29/2017 4:34:43 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Cementjungle

Sorry....a Road Runner joke.


51 posted on 05/29/2017 5:55:55 PM PDT by Defiant (The media is the colostomy bag where truth goes after democrats digest it.)
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To: Lorianne

"Yonder's the piggly wiggly miss Daisy"

52 posted on 05/29/2017 6:49:24 PM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Lorianne

Logan WV circa 1948-1957 Piggly Wiggly and Kroegers


53 posted on 05/29/2017 7:33:55 PM PDT by morphing libertarian
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To: Bubba Gump Shrimp

We have several Walmarts in our area. We do 90% of our grocery shopping at Walmart because their prices are typically 10% to 15% less on items that are not on sale. They vary a bit by clientele, selection, cleanliness and even price but our favorite is cleaner, friendlier, and has better selection than most other stores in our area.


54 posted on 05/29/2017 7:56:00 PM PDT by fireman15
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To: unixfox

My mom worked for Piggly Wiggly in Belzoni Mississippi. Back in the 60’s!

In the 1950’s and 60’s my dad worked for A&P, Massey’s Food Center, Johnny’s, Piggly Wiggly, Enumclaw Food Center and Food Giant.. He really like the food business. My dad told me a story once in the 1950’s that a Couple of Boys stole some cigarettes. My dad had one in the office and was questioning him. He told him we can do it the easy way or the hard way. My dad said if you don’t answer me correctly I’ll call the police. So my dad asked this boy his name. He looked at my Dad’s name tag and said Dwane. Dad said Dwane what and being in the 1950’s the boy said Eddy.. Dad called the police..


55 posted on 05/29/2017 8:46:25 PM PDT by Davy Crocket
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To: Lorianne

I use to ride my bike as a kid to Piggly Wiggly in the 1960’s and 70’s and buy comics and caps and candy. Located in Robbinsdale, Minnesota


56 posted on 05/29/2017 9:41:36 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: Calvin Locke
Have you been to a Walmart recently? It's like going to the third world.

I hear that. All I see is grease.

57 posted on 05/29/2017 9:44:40 PM PDT by Mr Apple ( Let's play....Hide the Muslim with Matt Authier @15:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59J0i3LNoY8)
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To: Verginius Rufus; Lorianne

You two probably know this, but others probably don’t - The Pink Palace museum in Memphis was built by Saunders. It was to be his home, but he never lived in it, due to his misfortune with the stock market mentioned in the article.

My family is from West Tennessee, and most of us have lived in or near Memphis for several years. My Mom always told me that Saunders built it on Central Avenue out of spite. He was mad at the Memphis Country club for not allowing him to join, so he built a magnificent mansion right across the street. (Google “Pink Palace” - It’s something to see.)

I’ve found an oral history from a Judge Tillman given in an interview to then “Memphis State University” that supports that:

Judge Tillman: Well, the money rolled in. In no time at all Clarence Saunders, in terms of liquid assets, was easily the richest man in Shelby County. Now, this is some folklore I am going to give now.

Having amassed all this wealth it seemed fit and proper that he would join the Memphis Country Club. The Memphis Country Club was at the time composed of old members of the southern aristocracy.... wealthy people, plantation owners, big businessmen, cotton people. It seemed just as important that the bloodlines as the finances, wealth. So, they rejected him.

As I understand the story he became furious. “Well”, he said, “I’ll build an establishment that will make this joint [the country club] look like a peanut stand”... He went right across the street along the northern boundary of the Memphis Country Club, which is Central Avenue and bought property. ... And he started building the Pink Palace. Much of the material was imported from overseas. As I understand the story, although he had the finest of architects, he drew the plans. If he didn’t like the appearance of something that was developing, he would say; “Tear it down, change it all!”


58 posted on 05/30/2017 11:52:42 AM PDT by HeadOn (Please tell the Democrats it's nap time, and the Republicans to report to the Principal's office.)
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