Piggly Wiggly: How Grocery Stores got Customers to do the Work of Employees

The concept of the grocery store has remained largely unchanged for decades, but the many aisles full of every item you could think of was far from the status quo as the US entered the 1900s. Customers wouldn’t even grab the items they wanted as it was employees' jobs to go get them for the customer. That is, until Clarence Saunders decided to shake up the industry by forcing his customers to go get there own groceries off the shelves in the first self-service grocery store. The idea was ridiculed at the time, but would quickly launch Saunders into fame as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his time, only to have it all come crashing down before him, leaving him bankrupt and removed from the company he once created.

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Sources
[1] https://www.americanheritage.com/rise...
[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-...
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[4] https://time.com/4480303/supermarkets...
[5] https://www.mashed.com/426197/the-unt...
[6]   / how-piggly-wiggly-revolutionized-retail-sh...  
[7] https://americanbusinesshistory.org/s...