Hypermarket Format: Any Future or a Real Need to Be Changed? An Empirical Study of the French, Spanish and Italian markets.

The hypermarket appeared first in France at the beginning of the sixties as a synthesis of the main features of modern retailing. But in France, the decline of this retail format seems to have begun and Spain could follow quickly. In the same time, the German hard-discounters continue their invasion. According to the retail life cycle theory, this paper displays curves to demonstrate the evolution of this retail concept in France, Spain and Italy and tries to evoke some managerial and strategic issues. The retail wheel seems to go on turning