NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Supermarket chain

A supermarket is a store that sells a wide variety of goods including food and alcohol (where permitted), medicine, clothes, and other household products that are consumed regularly. It is often part of a chain that owns or controls (sometimes by franchise) other supermarkets located in the same or other towns; this increases the opportunities for economies of scale. The chains themselves are often supplied from the distribution centers of a larger business. Albertsons (NYSE: ABS) is a grocery store chain that operates under the brands Jewel, Osco, Acme, Savon, Super-Saver Foods, and Max Foods, as well as Albertsons. ... ProduceSectionSafeway File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... ProduceSectionSafeway File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... A store is an enclosure for storing articles. ... In general usage, alcohol (from Arabic al-khwl الكحول, or al-ghawl الغول) refers almost always to ethanol, also known as grain alcohol, and often to any beverage that contains ethanol (see alcoholic beverage). ... Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with restoring and maintaining health. ... (See also List of types of clothing) Humans often wear articles of clothing (also known as dress, garments or attire) on the body (for the alternative, see nudity). ... A household refers to those who live in the same house, who may or may not make up a family. ... Chain stores are a range of retail outlets which share a brand and central management, usually with standardised business methods and practices. ... This article or section should include material from Franchise agreement Franchising - from the French for Free, is a method of doing business wherein a franchisor licenses trademarks and methods of doing business to a franchisee in exchange for a recurring royalty fee. ... ... A distribution center for a set of products is a warehouse or other specialized building with refrigeration or air conditioning which are supplied by transport, such as airplane, truck, rail or ship, and then re-distributed to retailers or wholesalers. ...

Supermarkets usually offer products at low prices by reducing margins. Certain products (typically staples such as bread, milk and sugar) are often sold as loss leaders, that is, with negative margins. To maintain a profit, supermarkets attempt to make up for the low margins with a high volume of sales, and with sales of higher-margin items. Customers usually shop by putting their products into trolleys (shopping carts) or baskets (self-service) and pay for the products at the check-out. At present, many supermarket chains are trying to reduce labour costs further by shifting to self-service check-out machines, where a group of four or five machines is supervised by a single assistant. The term margin has many meanings: In telecommunication, margin has the following meanings: In communications systems, the maximum degree of signal distortion that can be tolerated without affecting the restitution, without its being interpreted incorrectly by the decision circuit. ... In marketing, a loss leader is an item that is sold below cost in an effort to stimulate other profitable sales. ... Profit is defined as the residual value gained from business operations. ... A shopping cart/trolley A shopping cart (also called a buggy, or a trolley in British English; sometimes referred to as a carriage or shopping carriage in the U.S. region of New England) is a cart supplied by a shop, especially a supermarket, for use by customers inside the... POS must not be confused with EFT/POS and POS Terminal used in Electronic payment POS or PoS is an acronym for point-of-sale (or point of purchase). ...

A larger full-service supermarket combined with a department store is known as a hypermarket. Other services that supermarkets may have include cafés, creches, photo development, pharmacies, and/or petrol stations. A department store organizes its goods by departments, such as womens clothes, home furnishings, electronics, and the like. ... In commerce, a hypermarket (from the French hypermarché) is a store which combines a supermarket and a department store. ... A Street Cafe, Jerusalem, Henry Fenn (1838- ): steel engraving in Picturesque Palestine, ca 1875 A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant. ... Day care is the care of a child during the day by a person other than the childs parents or legal guardians, often someone outside the childs immediate family. ... Pharmacy (from the Greek φάρμακον = drug) is the profession of compounding and dispensing medication. ... Modern gas station A filling station, gas station or petrol station is a facility that sells fuel for road motor vehicles – usually petrol (US: gas/gasoline), diesel fuel and LPG. The term gas station is mostly particular to the United States of America and Canada, where petrol is known as...

History

Early retailers did not trust their customers. In many stores, all products had to be fetched by an assistant from high shelves on one side of a counter while the customers stood on the other side and pointed to what they wanted. Also, many foods did not come in the individually wrapped consumer-size packages taken for granted today, so a clerk had to measure out the precise amount desired by the consumer. These practices were obviously labor-intensive and quite expensive.

The concept of a self-service grocery store was developed by Clarence Saunders and his Piggly Wiggly stores, and A&P was the most successful of the early chains in the United States, having become common in American cities in the 1920s. The general trend in retail since then has been to stack shelves at night and let the customers get their own goods and bring them to the front of the store to pay for them. Although there is a higher risk of shoplifting, the costs of appropriate security measures will be ideally outweighed by the economies of scale and reduced labor costs. Clarence Saunders Clarence Saunders (August 9, 1881 - October 14, 1953) was a grocer who first developed the modern retail sales model of self-service. ... Piggly Wiggly is a supermarket chain in the Southeastern and Midwestern states of the United States. ... The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, is a United States and Canada. ... Sometimes referred to as the Roaring Twenties. Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy Gun. ... Broadly speaking, shoplifting is a term that refers to stealing from a shop, store, or other retail establishment, usually by a would-be patron or customer. ...

The first true supermarket in the United States was opened by ex-Kroger employee Michael J. Cullen, in August 1930 in a 6,000 square foot (560 m²) former garage in Jamaica, Queens, New York. The store, King Kullen, following King Kong, operated under the slogan "Pile it high. Sell it low." When Cullen died in 1936, there were fifteen stores in operation. Kroger Co. ... Michael J. Cullen invented the modern supermarket. ... Jamaica, now a neighborhood in Queens, New York City, was settled as a town by the English under Dutch rule in 1656 in New Netherland. ... State nickname: Empire State Other U.S. States Capital Albany Largest city New York Governor George Pataki Official languages None Area 141,205 km² (27th) - Land 122,409 km² - Water 18,795 km² (13. ... King Kong is a classic 1933 Hollywood horror/adventure film from RKO about a gigantic prehistoric gorilla, brought from a remote island to New York City to be exhibited as a natural wonder, that escapes to cause mass destruction. ...

Supermarkets proliferated in the United States along with suburban areas after World War II. Supermarkets in the USA are now often co-located with department stores in strip malls and are generally regional rather than national. Kroger is probably the closest thing in the U.S. to a national chain but has preserved most of its regional brands like Ralphs. Illustration of the backyards of a surburban neighbourhood Suburban redirects here. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... For the traditional meaning of the word mall, see mall. ... Categories: Corporation stubs | Supermarkets in the United States ...

It was formerly common for supermarkets to give trading stamps. Today, most supermarkets issue store-specific "members cards," "club cards," or "loyalty cards" which are scanned at the register when the customer goes to check-out. Typically, several items are given special discounts if the credit card-like devices are used. Trading stamps are small paper coupons given to customers by merchants. ... In marketing generally and in retailing more specificly, a loyalty card, rewards card, points card, or club card is a plastic card, visually similar to a credit card or debit card, that identifies the card holder as a member in a commercial incentives programme. ...

In Britain, France and other European countries, the proliferation of out-of-town supermarkets has been blamed for the disappearance of smaller, local grocery stores and for increased dependency on the motor car. In particular, some critics consider the practice of selling loss leaders to be anti-comptetitive. World map showing location of Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. ... A small variety of cars, the most popular kind of automobile. ... In marketing, a loss leader is an item that is sold below cost in an effort to stimulate other profitable sales. ...

Typical supermarket merchandise

Larger supermarkets in the United States typically sell many different types of items, such as: Download high resolution version (1296x972, 315 KB)Supermarket check out, London January 2005 Author: Velela. ... Download high resolution version (1296x972, 315 KB)Supermarket check out, London January 2005 Author: Velela. ...

In other countries, the range of products is sometimes more narrowly focused on food products, although the ranges sold are broadening in many countries as average store sizes increase. Alcoholic beverages are drinks containing ethanol, popularly called alcohol. ... Larger quantities of beer foam than shown atop this glass caused a stir in 1990s England when people received less than a pint (568 ml) of beer for the price of a pint. ... A glass of white wine This article is about the beverage. ... Introduction A mortgage is a device used to create a lien on real estate by contract. ... A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ... Savings deposits are accounts maintained by banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, and mutual savings banks that pay interest but can not be used directly as money. ... A pet or companion animal is an animal that is kept by humans for companionship and enjoyment, rather than for economic reasons. ... Cosmetics or makeup are substances to enhance the beauty of the human body, apart from simple cleaning. ... A book is a collection of leaves of paper, parchment or other material, bound together along one edge within covers. ... This article is about the magazine as a published medium. ... Luggage is any number of bags, cases and containers which hold a travellers articles during transit. ... DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... CD may stand for: Canadian Forces Decoration cash dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrums demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) certificate of deposit České dráhy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers Datenforung (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s Panhard race car designed... Videotape is a means of recording television pictures and accompanying sound onto magnetic tape as opposed to movie film. ... Breakfast cereal Breakfast cereal is a food product designed especially to be marketed to consumers as a breakfast food. ... The term confectionery refers to food items rich in sugar. ... High-heeled shoe Footwear consists of garments worn on the feet. ... Dairy products are generally defined as foodstuffs produced from milk. ... Large picture of collection of Soft Drinks This is a photograph taken by the uploader at a Giant Food store in Alexandria, Virginia. ... Large picture of collection of Soft Drinks This is a photograph taken by the uploader at a Giant Food store in Alexandria, Virginia. ... A soft drink is a drink that contains no alcohol. ... Diet can refer to several things: The nutritional diet of an organism or group. ... A first aid kit is a collection of supplies and equipment for use in giving first aid, particularly in an emergency. ... Feminine hygiene is a general term used to describe products used by women during menstruation, vaginal discharge, and other bodily functions related to the vulva. ... A sanitary towel (U.K.) or sanitary napkin (U.S.) is an absorbent piece of material worn by a woman while she is menstruating, to absorb the flow of blood from the vagina. ... A tampon with an applicator. ... A pantiliner is an absorbent piece of material used for feminine hygiene. ... Wildflowers A flower is the reproductive organ of those plants classified as angiosperms (flowering plants; Division Magnoliophyta). ... Freezing is a common method of food preservation which slows both food decay and the growth of microorganisms and, by turning water to ice, makes it unavailable for bacterial growth and chemical reactions. ... Fruit stall in Barcelona, Spain. ... Vegetables on a market Vegetable is a nutritional and culinary term denoting any part of a plant that is commonly consumed by humans as food, but is not regarded as a culinary fruit, nut, herb, spice, or grain. ... A greeting card is a folded card featuring a message of greeting or other sentiment. ... A lottery is a popular form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. ... Meat is animal tissue (mainly muscle) used as food. ... A falling water droplet Water (from the Anglo-Saxon and Low German wæter) is a colourless, tasteless, and odourless substance that is essential to all known forms of life and is the most universal solvent. ... A snack food is seen in Western culture as a type of food that is not meant to be eaten as part of one of the main meals of the day (breakfast, lunch, supper). ... This article is about things that people play with. ... Renting is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good owned by another person or company. ... Western Union is an American financial services and communications company. ... beerwineaisle File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... beerwineaisle File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...