From ‘peculiar stores’ to ‘a new way of thinking’: Discussions on self-service in Swedish trade journals, 1935–1955

Abstract

Swedish self-service grew swiftly from the late 1940s. One important conduit of knowledge was journals. This article studies how self-service was perceived, promoted or opposed in Swedish trade journals in 1935–1955. The main sources are journals published by wholesaling/retailing businesses (the Co-op, ICA and ASK), business associations, trade unions and academics. The principles of self-service were discussed in the journals in the 1930s. Direct support for or no general criticism of self-service was found from the late 1940s. Co-operatives and academics were pioneers in promoting self-service. Trade unions hardly discussed the issue. Other actors had some early doubts. From the mid 1940s doubts disappeared. The business associations were ahead of businesses such as ICA and ASK in promoting self-service.

Keywords:

• diffusion of innovation
• knowledge transfer
• rationalisation of distribution
• Americanisation
• self-service
• retailing
• wholesaling

Acknowledgements

Previous versions of this paper have been presented at the ABH/Chord-conference in June 2007, the Swedish Economic History Conference in October 2007, the EBHA conference in August 2008 and the Nordic Retail and Wholesale Conference in November 2008. Many thanks to Pernilla Jonsson who helped out with the introduction to the first version and to Mika Nielsen who collected data from Kooperatören and Köpmannen. Thanks to helpful comments from Pernilla Jonsson, Mika Nielsen, Francesca Polese, Harm G. Schröter and Lynn Karlsson. Thanks also to Bo Almgren for the English translation for Handelstjänstemannaförbundet.

Notes

1. Saunders, or formally the Piggly-Wiggly Corporation, also took out a Swedish patent in 1920 (Savås, 2000, p. 66).

2. It should also be noted that an interview with the merchant Aron Svensson in Handelsarbetaren from 1936 told about his abortive effort to introduce self-service in a grocery store in Stockholm (E.G., 1936). This may be the 1934 grocery store mentioned in Kjellberg (who in turn quotes Olof Henell). Moreover, in an article from Affärsekonomi in 1953 it was noted that the first self-service store allegedly was a private store called ‘Ta själv’ (Serve yourself) (G. Lindblad, 1953).

3. By 1970, self-service was estimated to cater for 90% of grocery sales in Sweden (Nyberg, 1998).

4. The term originated from the parliamentary committee on distribution published in 1955 (Varudistributionsutredningen, 1955).

5. Hakon [est. 1917] operated in central and north-eastern Sweden, SV [1922] in the Stockholm area, Eol [1938] in western and southern Sweden, and Nordsvenska Köpmanna [1938] in northern Sweden.

6. Good measures of market shares do not exist for this period. A reasonable estimate suggests that in both 1955 and 1960 KF and ICA had 25% each of the market for food (Wirsäll, 1982), while the share of ASK may have been around 14% (Nyberg, 1998).

7. The two institutes merged into Handelns Utredningsinstitut (Institute of Commercial Research) in 1968.

8. It was explicitly stated in Affärsekonomi in 1944 that it had been impossible to follow US developments systematically after December 1941 (‘Vad händer inom amerikansk distribution och reklam?’, 1944).