1959 ‘Apostle’ Invades Paris

Edouard Leclerc, the “apostle of low prices,” yesterday [Nov. 17] invaded the Paris area, the stronghold of the French petty tradesman’s holy trinity — low turnover, high profits and just-let-the-government-try-to-collect-taxes. An impish little man before whom even chain stores tremble, M. Leclerc opened in the suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux his “Centre Leclerc Paris No. 1,” a rather grand name for a simple grocery store which sells trade-marked items at wholesale prices. His effort was greeted by crowds of housewives, who squealed with delight over his bargains, and by near-by grocers, who shouted: “Traitor!” “Varlet!” and “Clown!”

Ever since i began going to France in 1969 and having lived there off and on for a few months a year i was always struck by the E Leclerc Supermarkets - often in ramshackle modular buildings situated in the less desirable parts of towns - like in industrial zones.

And Leclerc always advertised that they were the price beaters.

Well a blurb in a recent Paris Herald Tribune gives an interesting take on E Leclerc's coming to Paris and how threatened the Mom and Pop shops that previously dominated the city were.

It surprised me that Leclerc was that old - apparently already thriving by 1959 - and thus must have been a unique thing in a Europe that did not really see supermarkets until IME the Carrefour group launched their Hypermarches in the early 70s or so.

Today there are E Leclercs in practically every French town - and they still seem to be largely found in industrial zones well off the commercial strips - yup kind of like an Aldis, who i think similarly revolutionized Germany food selling.

Never shop at Leclerc, poor quality, no service.

Prefer the farmer's markets, small gourmet shop with high quality, better service and of course a little more expensive. Prefer to save on other things than penny-pinch quality food. My health is too important.

Leclerc's products are too processed (even for French standards) and mass produced, cheaply made. Question the quality, preservatives used, etc. etc. Walked in once, quickly left! Same reaction I had when I walked into Costco.

E.Leclerc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
E.Leclerc in Wrocław, Poland. 560 stores in France (391 hypermarkets, 131 supermarkets and 39 specialist shops); 30 hypermarkets in Italy, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.Leclerc

Intersting details of the E Leclerc empire - says like WalMart Leclerc is France's top retailer - but i am sure tha Carrefour S A is much more - in fact rivalling WalMart as the world's top retailer.

"a Europe that did not really see supermarkets until IME the Carrefour group launched their Hypermarches in the early 70s or so."

Eh???

Duttweiler started Migros in the mid-20s. Cohen started Tesco in the early 50s and the Defforeys opened the first proper edge of town Carrefour hypermarket in the early 60s (there'd been Carrefours since the 50s, but not quite as we now know them)

You're right that Leclerc hasn't gone prissy the way Tesco and Migros have (which is why his staff are so unhelpful, his systems even unhelpfuller, his trolleys rusty and his locations often practically impossible to access). You're also right that the supermarket is an American invention.

But seriously entrepreneurial Europeans were driving the industry well over 50 years ago, and still do so in Germany. Leclerc stands out in France because it's still run more or less the way Edouard wanted - whereas Carrefour has become a plaything for industrialists' feuds with each other.

"rivalling WalMart as the world's top retailer"

It's not. It really isn't.

Carrefour, Tesco and Germany's Metro are all far, far bigger than WalMart outside the US .

But WalMart's share of the US means it's streets ahead of Carrefour overall, even though one of the "let's shaft the other directors instead of the competition" games going on in Carrefour (currently one of the world's most dysfunctionally managed major corporations) is one shareholder's desire to sell all the non-European business so he can pay himself a preposterously huge dividend.

Carrefour S A i understand is a hodgepodge of a few rich families, including i guess some Spanish ones that may be the main stakeholders? Carrefour a Spanish company - anyway

J'Aime Carrefour

The claim is that Leclerc is Breton, which is why its fish selection is superior. It has its own butchers, which means that not everything is pre-packaged and over processed. In Périgueux it anchors a large shopping mall and is not in an industrial section of town, although that commercial zone is hardly more attractive than a light industrial area.

If it's so bad, must be only immigrants and tourists who shop there, eh?

Well it's not any worse than any other hypermarche - i frequent a Leclerc often when in my French base and a Carrefour hypermarche as well. Both are perpetually mobbed and i'd say the goods at Leclerc area about the same as as Carrefour, Auchan, etc.

Very very few French it appears think like TPaxe or probably just cannot afford such luxuries or simply are not food snobs when it comes to everyday fare.

We frequent the fresh markets all over the Périgord, but we also frequent LeClerc. Of course the market offerings are usually superior, and there are some things we would never buy at LeClerc (bread), but I don't find it any worse than most other hypermarchés in France, and it certainly beats my local Safeway.

The LeClerc in Sarlat is huge, compared to other stores in the Dordogne; some of the staff are on rollerskates!

When i first started spending a lot of time in France and driving Leclerc was known as the petrol cartel price buster - at least he dared deviate in his stores' petrol stations out front from the i guess government mandated price - i think he lost this battle as prices at the pump now seem universal or within a few centimes or Euro cents of each other. But that was Leclerc's goal i guess - to provide true competition at the lowest prices.

As supermarkets in France go, Leclerc is pretty good. Not to say pretty huge.

<i>Carrefour, Tesco and Germany's Metro are all far, far bigger than WalMart outside the US .</i>

Not really true at all. Wal-Mart has roughly 3000 stores outside of the US, Tesco has less than 2500. Of those 2500, roughly 1/3 are in Europe. Tesco is in 15 markets outside of the UK, Wal-Mart is in 14 markets outside the US. Carrefour is in more markets than both, but they have less than 2000 ex-Europe stores.

From a revenue standpoint, Wal-Mart's ex-US sales almost certainly easily eclipse those seen by either Tesco or Carrefour. Wal-Mart's revenues are a smidge over $400bn, of which roughly 20% (or $80bn) comes from Wal-Mart International. Considering that Tesco's Worldwide revenue (including the UK) is a bit less than £60bn, this means that Wal-Mart International grosses almost as much as Tesco does as a whole. So, we can safely say that Wal-Mart is much bigger internationally than Tesco.

Carrefour, of course, is larger than Tesco in terms of revenue, but their total revenue is still below €90bn. Given that around half of their locations are in France, it is probably safe to assume that their ex-France locations don't gross much more than €45bn or so. So, Wal-Mart most likely has an advantage over Carrefour, too. If we were to also take out Common Market countries (esp. Spain and Italy), then Wal-Mart International's revenues would probably be at least 4x that of Carrefour's ex-EU gross.

Actually, it looks like I missed a number in calculating Carrefour's ex-France stores, and it looks like France is less than 50% of the stores, so Carrefour's ex-France revenue may be closer to Wal-Mart International's than noted above.

>Never shop at Leclerc, poor quality, no service.<

Pish, tosh.

My supermarket's bigger than your supermarket. Na nana na na.

Albert Heijn, founded in 1887 opened their first self service shop in 1952 in Schiedam, following the example set in 1948 bij de Gebr de Woerkom, who opened a self service shop in NIjmegen.
The first real Albert Heijn Supermarket was opened in Rotterdam in 1955. Dirk van den Broek opened their first supermarket in 1953. Spar also had supermarkets from the early 50s.

So Le Clerc were far from unique I'm afraid.

<i>My supermarket's bigger than your supermarket. Na nana na na.</i>

Absolutely. It really is a stupid argument, but it seems to be one of flanner's favorite topics and it is fun pointing out that he is wrong.

Carrefour, Tesco and Germany's Metro are all far, far bigger than WalMart outside the US>

yes indeedy if flimlanner says it it must be true - seems NOT - and he charges folks to hear him give spiels i think about food marketing? Tsk tsk

Albert Heijn also has made the leap to the U.S. market with i think the Food Giant supermarkets (or some such name) and German Tengleman also forays in with their A & P buyout - the latter failing miserably i think.

Sainsbury's much heralded foray into the convenience store market in California - have not heard much about

Seems Aldi is one of the few foreign companies to make a go of it and expanding rapidly - a unique approach works

All of the French hypermarkets are just fine, but there should be a new shakeup in the sector soon, because the U.S. retirement funds (major shareholders in Carrefour) were trying to get Carrefour to dump its South American and Chinese operations (big bucks for stockholders looking to get rich quick -- no regard for long term business strategy). This was thwarted for the time being, but apparently Carrefour has been convinced to sell its Russian stores anyway.

Wal-Mart has been sniffing both Carrefour and Auchan for the last several years, but it has been somewhat restrained after its German and British failures. It has trouble understanding the stronger European markets. (It has no trouble with markets that had nothing before, because they will buy anything.)

The main French chains -- Carrefour, Auchan, E. Leclerc, Géant, Hyper U, Intermarché, Cora, etc. -- have cordially split up most of the territory in France, and their biggest problem is price-fixing cases brought on by consumer groups.

In any case, there is a trucker strike planned to start on Sunday, and it is targeting all of the hypermarket and supermarket chains to try to starve consumers right at the start of Christmas season. This could be interesting.