NPR interview with Marc Levinson, author of the new book The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America. In other words, Walmart learned from A&P.
Enter the A&P. The company, which originally focused on the tea market, opened its first small grocery store in 1912. Unlike traditional mom-and-pop stores, the A&P had no telephone, no credit lines and no delivery options. They also had lower prices.
"People figured out they could save money by shopping there," says Levinson. "It stocked only items that were fast-sellers, so it wasn't stuck with an inventory of products no one was buying. It had limited hours. It had a single employee. ... They found a way to sell groceries cheaper. ... Within eight years, this approach turned their company into the largest retailer in the world."
By 1930, the Hartford family, which owned A&P, had opened up almost 16,000 more stores. The stores themselves also expanded in both size and selection.
"Some of them started carrying meat, some of the stores started carrying dairy products," he says. "And the Hartfords also decided to expand into manufacturing. This was a pretty dramatic idea. The idea was that the A&P could buy bakeries, could buy salmon canneries, could buy vegetable canning plants, dairy plants, and [the company] could run these to supply its stores."
"By late 1939, unemployment was starting to fall, prices were starting to rise," he says. "And you had full employment in World War II. The fate of mom-and-pop merchants was not the political issue that it had been during the Depression. After the war, you had huge changes in American society — and people liked the idea of shopping at a larger store ... and they didn't like being told that they were supposed to do business with a little independent grocer who didn't offer them many choices."
Enter the A&P. The company, which originally focused on the tea market, opened its first small grocery store in 1912. Unlike traditional mom-and-pop stores, the A&P had no telephone, no credit lines and no delivery options. They also had lower prices.
"People figured out they could save money by shopping there," says Levinson. "It stocked only items that were fast-sellers, so it wasn't stuck with an inventory of products no one was buying. It had limited hours. It had a single employee. ... They found a way to sell groceries cheaper. ... Within eight years, this approach turned their company into the largest retailer in the world."
By 1930, the Hartford family, which owned A&P, had opened up almost 16,000 more stores. The stores themselves also expanded in both size and selection.
"Some of them started carrying meat, some of the stores started carrying dairy products," he says. "And the Hartfords also decided to expand into manufacturing. This was a pretty dramatic idea. The idea was that the A&P could buy bakeries, could buy salmon canneries, could buy vegetable canning plants, dairy plants, and [the company] could run these to supply its stores."
"By late 1939, unemployment was starting to fall, prices were starting to rise," he says. "And you had full employment in World War II. The fate of mom-and-pop merchants was not the political issue that it had been during the Depression. After the war, you had huge changes in American society — and people liked the idea of shopping at a larger store ... and they didn't like being told that they were supposed to do business with a little independent grocer who didn't offer them many choices."
No comments:
Post a Comment