French Hypermarket History and Future with Issues for American Supercenters
Résumé
This paper describes the historical origins of the French hypermarket concept and links it to American supercenters. It shows that these two concepts have the same foundations: large size, discount policy, network development, self-service techniques. They are both in the same time indirect descendants of the French department store ancestor Au Bon Marché created in Paris in 1852 and direct descendants of the first American supermarket opened in 1930. French statistics from 1957 to 2003 are used in a second empirical part to show that hypermarkets have reached the saturation point in France. This could lead to real problems which question the future of this retail concept. Issues for American supercenters are also discussed.