Clarence Saunders (August 9, 1881 – October 14, 1953) was an American grocer who first developed the modern retail sales model of self service. His ideas have had a massive influence on the development of the modern supermarket. Saunders worked for most of his life trying to develop a truly automated store, developing Piggly Wiggly, Keedoozle, and Foodelectric store concepts.
Early life
Saunders was born on a farm in Amherst County, Virginia, to Abram Warwick and Mary Gregory. Saunders' mother died when he was five. Abram had served in the Confederate army under Stonewall Jackson but had struggled financially in the aftermath of the war. In 1891, his father moved the family to Montgomery County, Tennessee, where his father worked as a laborer and sharecropper on a plantation near Palmyra, Tennessee. Saunders worked the plantation as well throughout his early childhood. By age 11, he was also working in a sawmill and limestone kiln during the summer and at a general store during the holidays. He received only two years of formal education in Palmyra, before quitting school entirely at 14 to work full-time for the general store. Saunders worked a variety of occupations over the next five years throughout the region, including shop assistant, night watchman and sawmill laborer. Recognizing the need for further education to advance, Saunders became a prolific reader and autodidact. At age 19, Saunders had moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he started working in the wholesale grocery business for John Hurst and Joseph Boillin, rapidly rising in the business.
In Clarksville Saunders met Carolyn Amy Walker, the daughter of a prominent Illinois attorney. Despite their contrasting backgrounds, they were married on 6 October 1903. The following year they moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where Saunders took up positions working for the wholesale grocers Shanks, Phillips & Co, as well as William Cole Early. Memphis in this period was booming the population had soared from 33,000 in 1880 to more than 100,000 by the time the Saunders' arrived. A major river point and railroad junction between the north and south, Memphis was a key distributor of goods to towns and cities throughout the region, whilst cotton merchants often served the dual role of selling wholesale supplies to farms and plantations as well, such that wholesaling was one of the largest industries in Memphis and one of its most lucrative.
In February 1913, he created United Stores, Inc., with 21 retail customers, giving Shanks, Phillips control of wholesale purchasing and advertising. A jointly owned United Store was opened in June 1914. Saunders' three children, Lee, Clarence Jr., and Amy Carolyn, were born in 1906, 1909 and 1912 respectively.
The success of Piggly Wiggly encouraged a raft of imitators, including Handy Andy stores, Helpy Selfy stores, Mick-or-Mack stores and Jitney Jungle, all of which operated under patented systems.
Wall Street raid
In the early 1920s Saunders began construction of a pink marble mansion in Memphis. Then, in early 1923, a group of franchised outlets in New York failed. Merrill Lynch and other speculators on Wall Street attempted a bear raid on the price of Piggly Wiggly stock, gambling the price would fall. With a loan of $10 million from a number of Southern bankers, plus a bit of his own money, Saunders counteracted by buying a large amount of Piggly Wiggly stock in hopes of driving up the price. He flamboyantly declared his intent in newspaper ads. Saunders bought Piggly Wiggly stock until he had orders for 196,000 of the 200,000 outstanding shares. The firm's share price went from a low of $39 in late 1922 to $124 by March 20, 1923. Pressured by the 'bears', the New York Stock Exchange declared a 'corner' existed (see cornering the market), and gave the 'bears' five days rather than the usual 24 hours to deliver the stock Saunders had bought. The additional time meant "a flood of stock poured [in] from distant points and gave the shorts opportunity to deliver."
In the words of John Brooks, "...in mid-August, with the September 1st deadline for repayment of two and a half million dollars on his loan staring him in the face and with nothing like that amount of cash either on hand or in prospect, he resigned as president of Piggly Wiggly Stores, Inc., and turned over his assetshis stock in the company, his Pink Palace, and all the rest of his propertyto his creditors."
The Pink Palace mansion eventually became Memphis' first museum in 1930.
Foodelectric
At the time of his death, Saunders was developing plans for another automatic store system called the "Foodelectric". The Foodelectric concept is a clear predecessor to self checkout. Saunders described it as follows:
<blockquote>The store operates so automatically that the customer can collect her groceries herself, wrap them and act as her own cashier. It eliminates the checkout crush, cuts overhead expenses and enables a small staff to handle a tremendous volume... I can handle a $2 million volume with only eight employees.</blockquote>
The central invention was a primitive computer, or "shopping brain" which was loaned to the shopper, who then roamed among the store's glass-enclosed items.
The store, which was to be located two blocks from the first Piggly Wiggly store in downtown Memphis, never opened.
Personal life
Clarence and Carolyn divorced on September 27, 1928, and Clarence married Patricia Houston Bamberg on December 20, 1928. He campaigned for Austin Peay, an acquaintance from his hometown, Clarksville, Tennessee. Peay won in 1922 and gave credit to Saunders' advertising. When Governor Peay ran for a third term in 1926 (Tennessee governors held office for two-year terms at the time) Saunders inexplicably opposed him, using newspaper ads to denounce his former friend. In 1928 Saunders backed Henry Horton for Governor against Hill McAlister. Memphis political leader E. H. Crump backed McAlister. The candidates were completely overshadowed by the newspaper advertising war waged by Saunders and Crump. Their feud was personal and striking, since few in Memphis had dared challenge Crump, one of the legendary city bosses in American politics. After 1928 Saunders' fortunes declined, and he did not write political ads again.
Patent
- - Self-serving store—C. Saunders