Piggly Wiggly opened the first self-service grocery store in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916.
Founded by Clarence Saunders, the store changed shopping by allowing customers to select goods from open shelves instead of handing a list to a clerk. Shoppers received baskets, moved through turnstiles, and paid at a checkout counter.
Earlier grocery stores commonly kept merchandise behind counters. Piggly Wiggly’s layout reduced clerical work and encouraged customers to notice more products, helping establish the basic supermarket format. The company also introduced innovations such as price-marked items and shopping baskets. The store’s self-service model was later adopted and expanded by many other grocery chains.