Félix Potin
Encyclopedia
Chain store
Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses. In retail, dining and many service categories, chain businesses...
retail business, founded in the mid-nineteenth century. While the business was bought out and then collapsed in the second half of the twentieth century, the brand has been revived by a contemporary distribution
Distribution (business)
Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user.The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing,...
network.
Biography
Jean-Louis-Félix Potin was born in 1820 in ArpajonArpajon
Arpajon is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.Seat of the canton, the commune is located south of Paris, accessible by the N20, and to in the north of Étampes...
, in what is today the Île-de-France
Île-de-France (région)
Île-de-France is the wealthiest and most populated of the twenty-two administrative regions of France, composed mostly of the Paris metropolitan area....
region surrounding Paris. He died in 1871.
History
Félix Potin opened his first shop at 28 rue Coquenard in Paris in 1844, at the age of just 24. This was followed by numerous other branches operating under the same name. In 1860, he opened the first two-level, large-area retailer on the Boulevard de SébastopolBoulevard de Sébastopol
The Boulevard de Sébastopol is an important roadway in Paris, France, which serves to delimit the 1st and 2nd arrondissements from the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of the city....
in Paris. The following year he constructed a Félix Potin factory in La Villette, in the northern outskirts of Paris.
The Félix Potin network experienced remarkable success during the late Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
and early Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
. In 1864 he expanded the Villette factory and opened a boutique on the Boulevard Malesherbes. In 1870 he started a home-delivery
Delivery (commerce)
Delivery is the process of transporting goods. Most goods are delivered through a transportation network. Cargo are primarily delivered via roads and railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea and airline networks in the air...
service. The business continued to grow after its founder's death, with a second factory in 1880 and a second large shop on Rue de Rennes in 1904. Félix Potin factories employed 1,800 workers in 1906, growing to 8,000 by 1927. By 1923, the Félix Potin name counted 70 branches, 10 factories, 5 wine stores
Wine cave
Wine caves are subterranean structures for the storage and aging of wine. They are an integral component of the wine industry world wide. The design and construction of wine caves represents a unique application of underground construction techniques....
and 650 horses.
The business survived in more or less the same form until 1956, when the 1,200 shops became minimarkets
Convenience store
A convenience store, corner store, corner shop, commonly called a bodega in Spanish-speaking areas of the United States, is a small store or shop in a built up area that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, toiletries, alcoholic and soft drinks, and may also offer money order and...
, which were bought out by Greek-French entrepreneur André Mentzelopoulos in 1958. After a period of poor management, this business collapsed and was liquidated
Liquidation
In law, liquidation is the process by which a company is brought to an end, and the assets and property of the company redistributed. Liquidation is also sometimes referred to as winding-up or dissolution, although dissolution technically refers to the last stage of liquidation...
in 1996, with the Promodès
Promodes
Promodès is a former French group of retailers. It was owned up to 56% by the Halley family. Paul-Auguste Halley, which was a simple grocer in the Mancha in the 1950s, had the idea of importing the concept of supermarkets in France....
chain buying a few of the points of sale. In 2003, the Société Philippe Potin acquired the right to use the Félix Potin name for its distribution network in South-East France.
Business model
When Félix Potin founded his business, a standard business model was to receive loads of goods from a manufacturer, then label and package them in store. By contrast, Félix Potin shops sold products produced and prepackaged at the chain's own factories, then sold them at standardised, publicised prices. Potin aimed to sell large volumes at reduced profit margins. Potin was thus a pioneer of the chain-and-branch, bulk-buying model of retail, unifying distribution and sales under the same brand. Frank Winfield WoolworthF. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
's eponymous five-and-dime chain in the US was, to some extent, a revival and development of Potin's model.
Architecture
The architect Paul Auscher (1866–1932) designed several buildings for Félix Potin. The distinctive turrets bearing Félix Potin's name can still be seen on the Boulevard de Sébastopol (now a MonoprixMonoprix
Monoprix S.A. is a major French supermarket chain with its headquarters in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France, near Paris.It is a joint subsidiary of the Casino Group and Groupe Galeries Lafayette, with both partners holding 50% of the company each since 2000. The Monoprix group had more than 300...
) and Rue de Rennes (now a Zara
Zara (clothing)
Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia, and founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera. It is the flagship chain store of the Inditex group; the fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and...
).