He also said Piggy Wiggly’s slogan, “Our cost plus 10 percent,” resonated with shoppers. The Northway location remained competitive with large chains for years because of its meat and deli department, among other reasons, Shaw said. It was apparent our time was going to be short there.” “I was putting off the decision to merge the stores for a little while. “The truth is, our lease at the Northway location had expired, and we were going month to month for the last few years,” Shaw said. He and his wife opened the Neely’s Mill location in 2007. Shaw, who worked his way from grocery clerk as a teenager to owner, bought the Piggly Wiggly store in 1995. The supermarket was a Giant food store when Shaw moved to town and became Piggly Wiggly in 1974.
We will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary in 2018. I told my wife, Brenda, the other day that I have worked in the same spot for 47 years and lived in the same house for 46 years. If you get me at the right moment, or ask me the right question, I might cry,” he added.
I was 16 and really enjoyed everything about my job. “I started my career in the grocery business at the Northway location when I moved to Columbia with my parents in 1970. “I would like to keep both stores open,” the 62-year-old Shaw said. The independently owned and operated store will remain open in Neely’s Mill on Trotwood Avenue. The Piggly Wiggly location in the Northway Shopping Center on Nashville Highway will close April 25, Shaw said. At least until Instacart comes to town.Columbia’s two Piggly Wiggly supermarkets will be consolidated into one store, owner Jody Shaw told The Daily Herald on Wednesday. There's less competition from big box chains like Wal-Mart or Safeway in those small towns, and by staying rural, they maintain a loyal customer base, providing inexpensive groceries to people who would otherwise have to travel to a major city. It might seem like a business disaster, but it's actually a brilliant strategy. Even within that limited Southern/Midwestern sphere, they tend to shun big cities and stick to medium and small towns. You're not going to find a Piggly Wiggly west of Oklahoma or anywhere in New England, but Alabama alone boasts more than 100 locations. Throughout the years, it's been bought and sold by various wholesale grocery distribution companies (by 1920, Saunders had lost control of the company by issuing stock and prolifically franchising), but it remains the same charming, quirky place that it was in 1916, at least in the South. It may not be the most well-known grocery store chain, but Piggly Wiggly is still up and running today. He shook everyone's hand and gave out flowers and balloons to children while a "brass band serenaded visitors in the lobby." This personal touch, alongside the lowest prices in town, was the key to keeping customers coming back. Aside from promising to host a "beauty contest," Saunders made sure he was out in front of the doors to greet every customer and make them feel welcome. Back in those days, however, t here was no social media, no television, and really, no way to get the word out about a new business without causing a scene, so that's exactly what Clarence Saunders did. The First Piggly Wigglyįounded on Septemin Memphis, Tennessee, Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service grocery store in the United States. Customers loved the new, lower prices of this "self-service" model, and the paradigm of the shopper-grocer relationship irrevocably shifted.
Piggly Wiggly allowed customers to stroll freely, gathering what they wanted at their leisure. In 1916, a grocery store with a silly name changed that forever. This kind of "full-service" shop was perfect for preventing theft and a premium customer experience, but it was an expensive way to do business. Instead of rolling in with a cart and grabbing things off the shelves to the strains of the in-store audio system's tasteful muzak, customers handed their shopping lists to a clerk who would collect the groceries for them. Going to the grocery store in the early 1900s was nothing like what it is today.
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