Ahypermarket orsuperstore is abig-box store combining asupermarket and adepartment store.[1] The result is an expansiveretail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including fullgrocery lines andgeneral merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. The termhypermarket (French:hypermarché) was coined in 1968 by the French trade expert Jacques Pictet.[2]
Hypermarkets, like otherbig-box stores, typically have business models focusing on high-volume, low-marginsales. 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.[citation needed] Because of their largefootprints, many hypermarkets choosesuburban or out-of-town locations that are easily accessible by automobile.
Loblaws established itsReal Canadian Superstore chain in 1979. It sells mainly groceries, while also retailing clothing, electronics and housewares. Its largest competitor in Canada isWalmart. These are the two major Canadian hypermarkets.
In 1961, following the repeal of Belgian laws that restricted department store sizes, the Belgian retailerGrand Bazar opened three hypermarkets under the nameSuperBazar. The first, opened in Bruges on 9 September, covered 3,300 square meters (36,000 sq ft), while the second in Auderghem, Brussels, spanned 9,100 square meters (98,000 sq ft), marking it as a significant early example of the hypermarket concept.[3]
It was Belgian market development engineerMaurice Cauwe [fr], who adopted the concept from his frequent trips to the United States, particularly inspired from theGrand Union's "Grand Way" center inParamus, New Jersey.[4]
Carrefour opened its first hypermarket in 1963, atSainte-Geneviève-des-Bois,France,[5] The co-founders were influenced by the teachings of Colombian-born American marketing executiveBernardo Trujillo, who taughtexecutive education as part of theNCR Corporation's marketing campaign.[6]
In France, hypermarkets are generally situated inshopping centers (French:centre commercial orcentre d'achats) outside cities, though some are present in the city center. They are surrounded by extensive car parking facilities, and generally by other specializedsuperstores that sell clothing, sports gear, automotive items, etc.
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 (theLoi Galland).
The predecessor toIto-Yokado was founded in 1920 selling western goods, went public in 1957, and switched to that name in 1965.Seibu Department Stores was founded in 1956, and opened up its grocery chainSeiyu Group in 1963.Isao Nakauchi founded the firstDaiei inKobe in 1957, selling clothing, electronics, furniture and groceries all in one store.Jusco was created in 1970, and eventually became known asAeon.
In Japanese, hypermarkets are known as General Merchandise Stores (総合スーパー,Sōgō Sūpā). There is a distinction in Japanese between Supers (スーパー) and Departs (デパート) with the former being discounters, but the latter selling luxury brand clothing and quite often high-end groceries as well.
Hypermarkets are found in both urban and less populated areas in Japan. Their development is often supported by collaborative investment from financial institutions. Japanese hypermarkets may contain restaurants,manga (Japanese comic) stands,Internet cafés, typical department store merchandise, a full range of groceries,beauty salons and other services all in the same store. A recent[when?] trend has been to combine thedollar store concept with the hypermarket blueprint, giving rise to the "hyakkin plaza"—hyakkin (百均) orhyaku en (百円) means 100yen (roughly 1U.S. dollar).
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.
ThePacific Northwest chainFred Meyer, now a division of theKroger supermarket company, opened the first suburban one-stop shopping center in 1931 in theHollywood District ofPortland, Oregon. The store's innovations included a grocery store alongside adrugstore plus off-street parking and an automobile lubrication and oil service. In 1933, men's and women's wear was added, and automotive department, housewares, and other non-food products followed in succeeding years. In the mid-1930s, Fred Meyer opened a central bakery, a candy kitchen, an ice cream plant, and a photo-finishing plant, which supplied the company's stores in Portland and neighbouring cities with house brands such as Vita Bee bread, Hocus Pocus desserts, and Fifth Avenue candies. By the 1950s, Fred Meyer began opening stores that were 4,200 to 6,500 m2 (45,000 to 70,000 sq ft), and the 1960s saw the first modern-sized Fred Meyer hypermarkets.[8]
TheMidwest (then grocery) chainMeijer, which today operates about 235 stores in six U.S. states, coined the term "super center",[9] and opened the first of its hypermarket format store inGrand Rapids, Michigan, in June 1961, under the brand name "Thrifty Acres".[10][11]
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the three major U.S.discount store chains –Walmart,Kmart andTarget – started developing similar format chains. Wal-Mart (as it was known before its late-2000s rebranding as Walmart) introducedHypermart USA in 1987, followed byWal-Mart Supercenter in 1988;[12] The same year, French chainsCarrefour andAuchan opened hypermarkets inPhiladelphia andGreater Houston, respectively.[13] Kmart opened its first Super Kmart Center in 1991;[14] and Target came with the first Target Greatland stores in 1990, followed by the larger SuperTarget stores in 1995.[15] Most Greatland stores have since been converted to SuperTarget stores, while some have been converted into regular Target stores with the exception of 2 entrances (one example of this is theAntioch, California location which opened in 2004).
In the early 1990s, U.S. hypermarkets also began selling fuel. The idea was first introduced in the 1960s, when a number of supermarket chains and retailers likeSears 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 U.S. selling fuel, representing an estimated 14 billion US gallons (53 billion litres) sold each year.[16]
In Australia, hypermarkets were at their peak during the 1980s. This was especially prevalent during the era of South African ownedPick n Pay Stores and a now discontinued format ofKmart Australia stores known as Super Kmart. This trend in the Australian market soon lost its appeal into the 1990s. Super Kmart stores were discontinued andColes Supermarkets and Kmart Stores opened in the former location. Pick n Pay continued to operate in Australia until the 2000s when their locations atAspley andSunnybank Hills were converted into Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Department Stores.
As of 2022, the only hypermarket or Big-Box Store operational in Australia areCostco Wholesale Warehouses with currently sixteen stores in Australia – five stores inMelbourne, three stores inSydney, two stores inBrisbane, two stores inPerth and one store each inNewcastle,Canberra,Adelaide and Queensland'sGold Coast. There were plans for German hypermarket companyKaufland to open stores in Australia announced in 2019; these plans were cancelled in 2020.
Before 2009 (1388 ه.ش.), 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 ofIran 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.[17]
The averageWalmart Supercenter covers around 16,500 m2 (178,000 sq ft), with the largest ones covering 24,000 m2 (260,000 sq ft).[18] A typicalCarrefour hypermarket still covers 10,000 m2 (110,000 sq ft), while the European trend in the 2000s has rather turned towards smaller hypermarkets of 3,000 to 5,000 m2 (32,000 to 54,000 sq ft).[19] In France,INSEE defines hypermarkets (French:hypermarché/s) as non-specialized markets with a minimum size of 2,500 m2 (27,000 sq ft).[20]
Despite its historical success, analysts such asSanjeev Sanyal, former Deutsche Bank Global Strategist until 2015, have suggested that the hypermarket model may face challenges from online shopping and increasing demand for customized retail experiences.[21] Sanyal has argued that some developing countries such as India may omit the hypermarket stage and directly go online.[22]
Another category of stores sometimes included in the hypermarket category are the membership-basedwholesalewarehouse clubs that are popular inNorth America, pioneered byFedco and today includingSam's Club, a division of Walmart;Costco, in whichCarrefour owned some shares[23] from 1985 to 1996;BJ's Wholesale Club on the East Coast; andClubes City Club in Mexico. In Europe,Makro (owned byMetro AG) leads the market.
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.
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