آژانس تبلیغاتی بادکوبه - Badkoobeh Advertising Agency

The beginning of the chain stores goes back to mid-19 century in United States of America. In the year 1859 the first branch of A&P chain store was opened in America.  In 1879, the first stores selling various goods opened in New York. Following by the fast growth of chain stores in America, in the year 1929, almost 22% of the total retail was done through these chain stores.

The main reason behind these chain stores fortuity was not due to the variety of items being sold but it was because of the low cost and pricing of products in these stores that made them very popular among consumers. Another reason for their success was, the fact of being “self-service” meaning customers can go around the store. The lack and least distinction of customers social class in these stores was another factor of making them successful.

However, form the mid-20s, chain stores venture to launch modern super markets for the first time. Based on the statistics in the year 1997, more than 60 % of retail sales in America was done through the chain stores. The phenomenon of globalization, encouraged the chain stores and today we have chain stores such as: TESCO, ALDI, WAL MART, CARREFOUR from England, Germany, America and France can be seen in almost all countries in the world.

The history of chain stores in Iran

The launch date of chain stores in Iran goes back to 1328, the launch of co-operative stores of “Sepah baz”. After this some other hyper stores such as “the City and Village cooperative store” and “Kouroosh chain stores” were launched and started their work.

In the 70s in Iran, the inspiration of launching chain stores was from the chain stores around the world which had the highest retail sales among all the developed countries at that time, the permition of such startup was in the hands of government agenda and some nongovernment public institutes (NGOs’) like the department of Municipality. Refah store, which officially started it work in 1374, today after 2 decades has 125 branches all around Iran. From the 80s onwards, according to the benefits of chain stores and their positive effects on distribution system correction, a new wave of chain stores started their activities.

In big cities around 29% of sales is dedicated to daily markets and around 23% of sales is for hyper stores and chain stores, but still sundry purchases is done through small and local supermarkets.

The fast development and growth in the country via internal and external divisions, as well as competition increasing among these stores to attract more and more costumers, has resulted in daily changes in creativity and Enovation in the way the products are presented and sold in these stores. Stores such as Hyper star due to being quite modern than its competitors, has the most variety share of products. Some of these stores, offer products 10% cheaper than the consumer price to public, this can be the reason consumers are more satisfied compare to other similar stores.

Even though it’s been 50 years since the begging of such stores, they are not taken seriously as they should from consumers as well as they haven’t turned themselves as major powers in the market. It seems the business of chain stores and retail in Iran, are dealing with difficulties preventing them to succeed as innovative distributer service providers. Launching chain stores, needs enormous investment and great Infrastructures, however, at this time they bring to advantages such as job creation and sales warranty for internal product manufactures and finally covers people’s needs effectively and efficiently.  

In general considering the outspreading of chain stores in Iran’s retail market, still they have a long way to go to become the main distributers and source for this market. In fact these chain stores mostly exits in main and big cities in Iran rather than being all over the county. It’s worth mentioning that such stores due to their Subsidiary and marginal attractions have gained the consumers attentions.

Still in most small cities and also even in big cities of Iran, independent, small and local stores are considering to be the main good distributes.  Having said this, experience has shown in the last decade that international chain stores can be a great success in Iran if being supported by the legal and governmental institutes.  The key factor for consumers are the offering price in such stores and the quality comes next.