The loss of small groceries and hypermarket growth in Malaysia
The first hypermarkets in Malaysia opened for business in 1994 / 1995. The hypermarkets grew rapidly and symbolised, or led, a change to large-scale grocery retailing, spatially and organisationally. This modernisation, or organisation, was accompanied by a decline of small groceries in residential...
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2011
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.um.edu.my/12806/1/14-HansPeterHolst.pdf http://eprints.um.edu.my/12806/ |
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| Summary: | The first hypermarkets in Malaysia opened for business in 1994 / 1995. The hypermarkets grew rapidly and symbolised, or led, a change to large-scale grocery retailing, spatially and organisationally. This modernisation, or organisation, was accompanied by a decline of small groceries in residential communities. Soon Malaysian policy makers began to ascribe the decline of small retailers to the hypermarket growth and heralded the possibility of curtailing the hypermarkets to stop the loss of small businesses. In spite of the rhetoric, the number of hypermarkets - and supermarkets - continued to increase. The purpose of this study was to seek to understand and articulate the retail modernisation in Malaysia by large-scale retail and the tens of thousands of small shops at which Malaysian households fundamentally shopped for groceries / provisions until well into the 1990s and which also provided a form of food security in local communities. Data collection included an empirical survey of small groceries in Peninsular Malaysia. The analysis showed that supermarkets affected small groceries more negatively than did the hypermarkets. This was a new empirical finding for Malaysia, but it was hardly a surprising finding. |
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