By the end of that first year there were nine Piggly Wiggly locations around Memphis. Shoppers on that first day did see some employees stocking shelves, Freeman writes, “but they politely refused to select merchandise for visitors.” Just like today, a shopper picked up a basket (though Piggly Wiggly’s were made of wood, not plastic) and went through the store to purchase everything. ![]() Saunders’s model cut costs by cutting out the clerks. Even chain stores used clerks.Īlthough the chain store model helped keep costs down, the University of Michigan Library writes, the “small army of clerks” necessary to fill orders were expensive, the university writes, and at least part of that cost was passed on to the consumer. Before Piggly Wiggly, groceries were sold at stores where a clerk would assemble your order for you, weighing out dry goods from large barrels. ![]() This enthusiastic greeting was necessary because Saunders was trying something completely new. A brass band serenaded the visitors in the lobby.” “Newspaper reporters posing as contest judges awarded five and ten dollar gold coins to every woman, while the supply lasted. “At the door Saunders shook their hands and gave to their children flowers and balloons,” Freeman writes. For the store’s opening ceremonies, writes Mike Freeman for the Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Saunders promised to hold a “beauty contest” that he advertised in local newspapers. But its founder Clarence Saunders was clearly onto something-today, self-service grocery stores are the norm. Its founding is one of the stranger stories in the history of retail. Today, the chain has more than 530 stores across 17 states, according to its website. On this day in 1916, the first Piggly Wiggly opened in Memphis, Tennessee. The one question is why their innovator named the first one Piggly Wiggly. Piggly Wiggly Corporation continued to prosper as franchiser for the hundreds of independently owned grocery stores allowed to operate under the Piggly Wiggly name and during the next several decades, functioned successfully under various owners.Self-serve grocery stores saved shoppers money and made financial sense. The stock was successfully traded on the New York Stock Exchange for some time, but through a series of stock transactions in the early 1920s, Saunders lost control of Piggly Wiggly and had no further association with the company. The original Piggly Wiggly Corporation became owner of all Piggly Wiggly properties: the name, the patents, etc., and Saunders began issuing stock in the Corporation. ![]() ![]() Piggly Wiggly Corporation, established by Saunders when he opened the first store in Memphis, secured the self-service format and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of Piggly Wiggly stores. There were shopping baskets, open shelves and no clerks to shop for the customer – all unheard of! Operating under the unusual name Piggly Wiggly, it was unlike any other grocery store of that time. Saunders, a flamboyant and innovative man, noticed that this method resulted in wasted time and expense, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.ĭespite predictions that this novel idea would fail, Saunders’ first store opened Septemat 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis. In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who gathered the goods from the store shelves. Piggly Wiggly®, America's first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tenn.
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