Nothing in recent years has so changed the economy of the United States as the development of the supermarket. Previously, people bought their food in small grocery stores, generally located on a nearby corner. Now, almost everyone shops in large supermarkets. The small independent grocer has practically disappeared from the American scene.
When a supermarket is established in a certain section of a city, other smaller stores rise up around it almost immediately. The entire group of stores becomes what is known as a shopping center. The average supermarket covers about 35,000 square feet of shopping area. It should have one parking space for every 300 square feet of shopping area. Six out of every ten American shoppers drive to the supermarket.
Statistics show that the average American housewife goes to the supermarket twice a week. On the average she spends from one to two hours there each week. Psychologists say that women don't go to the supermarket just to buy food. Visiting the supermarket is the housewife's chance to get away from home for a while. In the supermarket she feels that she is part of the outside world. She gets to know all the new products. Frequently she meets a number of her friends in the supermarket.
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Supermarket in the US