Who Was Clarence Saunders, Founder of Piggly Wiggly?

TL;DR

Clarence Saunders invented the self-service grocery store with Piggly Wiggly, where customers walked aisles, picked their own food, and saw price tags. Before that, a grocer fetched, weighed, and charged for every item at a counter, often on credit. Saunders was also a bully obsessed with growth. After losing control of his company to Wall Street speculators, he opened the Clarence Saunders Sole Owner Of My Name store.

Transcript

• My camera's not turning on. It's not turning on. (crowd murmuring) Okay. - Does this seem like a desert to you? (man laughing) It's ridiculous. (man laughing) (woman gasping) - Can you be a total asshole and still change the world for the better? I'm not actually sure about that question, but there's one guy who certainly seems like proof that yo... Read More

Key Insights

• Clarence Saunders created Piggly Wiggly, a grocery store where customers walked through aisles and picked out their own food. Products carried price tags, which had never been the case in grocery stores before his concept.
• Full-service grocery stores were the norm a hundred years ago. Customers handed a list to the grocer at a counter, the grocer gathered and weighed the food, and shoppers often paid the bill back over time on credit.
• Brand names and highly processed packaged food mattered far less in full-service stores, because customers usually did not choose brands themselves. Self-service aisles changed how shoppers interacted with products.
• Saunders chose the name Piggly Wiggly so that people would ask why it had that name. He once said the name arrived from out of chaos and in direct contact with an individual's mind.
• Saunders spent a large share of his advertising budget on deliberately strange ads, an early form of guerrilla marketing. He even named his third store Piggly Wiggly III because he felt it was owed a certain royal dignity.
• Self-service grocery stores cost many clerks their jobs, and John Green's great grandfather's store in rural Tennessee closed. The resulting fear of losing jobs to automation and efficiency foreshadows current concerns about technology.
• Saunders showed signs of being a bully early on, treating employees cruelly and shortchanging partners. He was so obsessed with growth that a Memphis-only Piggly Wiggly displayed 'Piggly Wiggly: All Over The World' on its windows.
• John Green rejects the idea of lone geniuses reshaping history. He believes in humans making things together and describes Saunders, quoting Robert Penn Warren, as a bubble on the tide of empire.

Questions & Answers

Q: Who was Clarence Saunders?

Clarence Saunders was the founder of Piggly Wiggly, the grocery store that introduced self-service shopping in the United States. Customers walked through aisles, chose their own food, and saw price tags on products. Author John Green calls him one of the most fascinating characters in American history, describing him as a growth-obsessed, ego-driven bully who still changed how Americans shop.

Q: How did grocery stores work before Piggly Wiggly?

Before Piggly Wiggly, most American grocery stores were full-service stores. A customer walked in, went to a counter, and often handed the grocer a list. The grocer then gathered the food, weighed it, and charged for it, and customers frequently paid the bill back over time on credit. These stores had no aisles, and brand names and packaged food mattered much less.

Q: What made the Piggly Wiggly store concept new?

Piggly Wiggly let customers walk through aisles and pick out their own food instead of relying on a clerk behind a counter. Products carried price tags, which had never been the case in grocery stores before. Saunders said the idea hit him like a bolt of lightning on a train, and it became the model for how Americans shop for groceries.

Q: Why is the store called Piggly Wiggly?

Clarence Saunders gave different answers. Once he said the name arrived from out of chaos and in direct contact with an individual's mind. Most of the time, when asked why he chose Piggly Wiggly, he answered that it was so people would ask that very question. The odd name was part of a marketing strategy built on curiosity and talk.

Q: How did Clarence Saunders market Piggly Wiggly?

Saunders spent a large percentage of his advertising budget on deliberately weird ads meant to make people curious and talk about the store. He named his third store Piggly Wiggly III because he felt it was owed a certain royal dignity. Johnny Harris compares the approach to modern Old Spice commercials and calls it pioneering guerrilla marketing.

Q: What impact did self-service grocery stores have on jobs?

Self-service stores made clerks who used to gather customers' groceries unnecessary, and many lost their jobs. John Green's great grandfather's full-service store in rural Tennessee closed, as did many others. There was widespread fear about losing jobs to automation and efficiency, which foreshadows present concerns that technology could eliminate a large share of current jobs.

Q: What happened after Clarence Saunders lost control of Piggly Wiggly?

Saunders lost control of the business to Wall Street speculators and became angry and hateful while trying to prove them wrong. He wrote that they had the body of Piggly Wiggly but not its soul. He then developed a new store with aisles plus staffed deli and bakery counters, and when blocked from naming it Saunders, he called it the Clarence Saunders Sole Owner Of My Name store.

Q: Do you have to be a ruthless boss to build a world-changing business?

John Green is not sure. A successful entrepreneur once told him he was too loyal to his people and not loyal enough to his product, and Green said he would prefer to err on that side. He believes in humans making things together, not lone brilliant individuals reshaping history, and calls Saunders a bubble on the tide of empire, quoting Robert Penn Warren.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Grocery stores a century ago were full service: customers handed a list to a grocer at a counter, who fetched, weighed, and charged for the food, often on credit. There were no aisles, and brand names and packaged food mattered much less than they do today.

• Clarence Saunders invented Piggly Wiggly, a store with aisles, self-selected food, and price tags. He used strange, attention-grabbing marketing, but the shift cost many clerks their jobs, and he was known as a growth-obsessed bully who mistreated employees and shortchanged partners.

• After losing control of Piggly Wiggly to Wall Street speculators, Saunders opened a store with aisles plus deli and bakery counters, called the Clarence Saunders Sole Owner Of My Name store. John Green questions the cult of the lone founder and favors loyalty to people over loyalty to product.