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A hypermarket or superstore is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store.^[1] The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full grocery lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. The term hypermarket (French: hypermarché) was coined in 1968 by the French trade expert Jacques Pictet.^[2]

Hypermarkets, like other big-box stores, typically have business models focusing on high-volume, low-margin sales. Typically covering an area of 5,000 to 15,000 square metres (54,000 to 161,000 sq ft), they generally have more than 200,000 different brands of merchandise available at any one time.^{[citation needed]} Because of their large footprints, many hypermarkets choose suburban or out-of-town locations that are easily accessible by automobile.

Loblaws established its Real Canadian Superstore chain in 1979. It sells mainly groceries, while also retailing clothing, electronics and housewares. Its largest competitor in Canada is Walmart. These are the two major Canadian hypermarkets.

In 1961, following the repeal of Belgian laws that restricted department store sizes, the Belgian retailer Grand Bazar opened three hypermarkets under the name SuperBazar. The first, opened in Bruges on 9 September, covered 3,300 square meters (36,000 sq ft), while the second in Auderghem, Brussels, spanned 9,100 square meters (98,000 sq ft), marking it as a significant early example of the hypermarket concept.^[3]

It was Belgian market development engineer Maurice Cauwe [fr], who adopted the concept from his frequent trips to the United States, particularly inspired from the Grand Union's "Grand Way" center in Paramus, New Jersey.^[4]

Carrefour opened its first hypermarket in 1963, at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, France,^[5] The co-founders were influenced by the teachings of Colombian-born American marketing executive Bernardo Trujillo, who taught executive education as part of the NCR Corporation's marketing campaign.^[6]

In France, hypermarkets are generally situated in shopping centers (French: centre commercial or centre d'achats) outside cities, though some are present in the city center. They are surrounded by extensive car parking facilities, and generally by other specialized superstores that sell clothing, sports gear, automotive items, etc.

After the successes of super- and hyper-markets and amid fears that smaller stores would be forced out of business, France enacted laws that made it more difficult to build hypermarkets and also restricted the amount of economic leverage that hypermarket chains can impose upon their suppliers (the Loi Galland).

In the United Kingdom the first hypermarket was in West Bridgford. It was 110,000sq ft and opened in 1964.^[5]

The predecessor to Ito-Yokado was founded in 1920 selling western goods, went public in 1957, and switched to that name in 1965. Seibu Department Stores was founded in 1956, and opened up its grocery chain Seiyu Group in 1963. Isao Nakauchi founded the first Daiei in Kobe in 1957, selling clothing, electronics, furniture and groceries all in one store. Jusco was created in 1970, and eventually became known as Aeon.

In Japanese, hypermarkets are known as General Merchandise Stores (総合スーパー, Sōgō Sūpā). There is a distinction in Japanese between Supers (スーパー) and Departs (デパート) with the former being discounters, but the latter selling luxury brand clothing and quite often high-end groceries as well.

Hypermarkets are found in both urban and less populated areas in Japan. Their development is often supported by collaborative investment from financial institutions. Japanese hypermarkets may contain restaurants, manga (Japanese comic) stands, Internet cafés, typical department store merchandise, a full range of groceries, beauty salons and other services all in the same store. A recent^[when?] trend has been to combine the dollar store concept with the hypermarket blueprint, giving rise to the "hyakkin plaza"—hyakkin (百均) or hyaku en (百円) means 100 yen (roughly 1 U.S. dollar).

Until the 1980s, large stores combining food and non-food items were unusual in the United States, although early predecessors existed since the first half of the 20th century.^[7] The term "hypermarket" itself is still rarely used in the US.

The Pacific Northwest chain Fred Meyer, now a division of the Kroger supermarket company, opened the first suburban one-stop shopping center in 1931 in the Hollywood District of Portland, Oregon. The store's innovations included a grocery store alongside a drugstore plus off-street parking and an automobile lubrication and oil service. In 1933, men's and women's wear was added, and automotive department, housewares, and other non-food products followed in succeeding years. In the mid-1930s, Fred Meyer opened a central bakery, a candy kitchen, an ice cream plant, and a photo-finishing plant, which supplied the company's stores in Portland and neighbouring cities with house brands such as Vita Bee bread, Hocus Pocus desserts, and Fifth Avenue candies. By the 1950s, Fred Meyer began opening stores that were 4,200 to 6,500 m² (45,000 to 70,000 sq ft), and the 1960s saw the first modern-sized Fred Meyer hypermarkets.^[8]

The Midwest (then grocery) chain Meijer, which today operates about 235 stores in six U.S. states, coined the term "super center,"^[9] and opened the first of its hypermarket format store in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in June 1961, under the brand name "Thrifty Acres."^[10][11]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the three major U.S. discount store chains – Walmart, Kmart and Target – started developing similar format chains. Wal-Mart (as it was known before its late-2000s rebranding as Walmart) introduced Hypermart USA in 1987, followed by Wal-Mart Supercenter in 1988;^[12] The same year, French chains Carrefour and Auchan opened hypermarkets in Philadelphia and Greater Houston, respectively.^[13] Kmart opened its first Super Kmart Center in 1991;^[14] and Target came with the first Target Greatland stores in 1990, followed by the larger SuperTarget stores in 1995.^[15] Most Greatland stores have since been converted to SuperTarget stores, while some have been converted into regular Target stores with the exception of 2 entrances (one example of this is the Antioch, California location which opened in 2004).

In the early 1990s, U.S. hypermarkets also began selling fuel. The idea was first introduced in the 1960s, when a number of supermarket chains and retailers like Sears tried to sell fuel, but it didn't generate sufficient consumer interest at the time. Today, there are approximately 4,500 hypermarket stores in the U.S. selling fuel, representing an estimated 14 billion US gallons (53 billion litres) sold each year.^[16]

In Australia, hypermarkets were at their peak during the 1980s. This was especially prevalent during the era of South African owned Pick n Pay Stores and a now discontinued format of Kmart Australia stores known as Super Kmart. This trend in the Australian market soon lost its appeal into the 1990s. Super Kmart stores were discontinued and Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Stores opened in the former location. Pick n Pay continued to operate in Australia until the 2000s when their locations at Aspley and Sunnybank Hills were converted into Coles Supermarkets and Kmart Department Stores.

As of 2022, the only hypermarket or Big-Box Store operational in Australia are Costco Wholesale Warehouses with currently sixteen stores in Australia – five stores in Melbourne, three stores in Sydney, two stores in Brisbane, two stores in Perth and one store each in Newcastle, Canberra, Adelaide and Queensland's Gold Coast. There were plans for German hypermarket company Kaufland to open stores in Australia announced in 2019; these plans were cancelled in 2020.

Before 2009 (1388 ه.ش.), there were some local hypermarkets, but international branches were nonexistent. Despite their late arrival, hypermarkets in Iran have achieved a significant degree of growth. The first branch was opened in Tehran under the name of Iran Hyperstar through a collaboration between Carrefour and Majid Al Futtaim Group based in the United Arab Emirates. The Emirati holding is the main shareholder with about 75% of the company's shares. New branches were established after Iran Hyperstar’s first store found relative success. Now, other branches have been established in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Ahvaz, etc.^[17]

The average Walmart Supercenter covers around 16,500 m² (178,000 sq ft), with the largest ones covering 24,000 m² (260,000 ft²).^[18] A typical Carrefour hypermarket still covers 10,000 m² (110,000 ft²), while the European trend in the 2000s has rather turned towards smaller hypermarkets of 3,000 to 5,000 m² (32,000 to 54,000 ft²).^[19] In France, INSEE defines hypermarkets (French: hypermarché/s) as non-specialized markets with a minimum size of 2,500 m² (27,000 sq ft).^[20]

Despite its historical success, analysts such as Sanjeev Sanyal, former Deutsche Bank Global Strategist until 2015, have suggested that the hypermarket model may face challenges from online shopping and increasing demand for customized retail experiences.^[21] Sanyal has argued that some developing countries such as India may omit the hypermarket stage and directly go online.^[22]

Another category of stores sometimes included in the hypermarket category are the membership-based wholesale warehouse clubs that are popular in North America, pioneered by Fedco and today including Sam's Club, a division of Walmart; Costco, in which Carrefour owned some shares^[23] from 1985 to 1996; BJ's Wholesale Club on the East Coast; and Clubes City Club in Mexico. In Europe, Makro (owned by Metro AG) leads the market.

However, warehouse clubs differ from hypermarkets in that they have sparse interior decor and require paid membership. In addition, warehouse clubs usually sell bigger packages and have fewer choices in each category of items.

• List of hypermarkets
• Mass consumption – Acquisition of goods beyond essential needsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Types of retail outlets – Sale of goods and services
• Shelf-ready packaging – Form of product packaging

• Media related to Supermarkets at Wikimedia Commons