The Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain remains with us today but when Piggly Wiggly first appeared on the scene in 1916 it was part of a whole new concept in retailing: the self-service store.
Lisa Tolbert, a professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, explores the Piggly Wiggly phenomenon through 1940 at which time the self-service approach had become commonly accepted, she noted.
Tolbert describes how the self-service store was "a starkly different experience" than shopping in a counter-service store. She also tells the story of Piggly Wiggly founder Clarence Saunders, a white supremacist who courted African-American customers, was the consummate salesman.
The Piggly Wiggly story is also a franchising story with most stores operated by independent franchisees with five stores or less. Advertising is also part of Tolbert's story: Piggly Wiggly took out a two-page spread in the national magazine Collier's in the 1920s, an unheard of effort by a grocery chain that usually focused on the local newspaper, Tolbert told Steve Tarter.
For the first half of the 20th century, Piggly Wiggly went head to head with another national chain, supermarket giant A & P, to sell America its groceries, she said.