Perceived Control in Pricing and Service Strategies

In 1916, Clarence Saunders initiated a retail strategy that would drastically transform the method of service delivery. By viewing consumers as unexploited resources, he envisioned that consumers could serve themselves. For that reason, he established the world’s first self-service grocery store, named Piggly Wiggly (Salomann, Kolbe, and Brenner 2006). The selfservice concept is straightforward. Simply, consumers conduct tasks that were previously performed by others. Since Saunders’ creation, the self-service format has significantly developed, along with the degree of automation and technology integrated into consumer relationships. It has been said that the blending of self-service and technology is “to transform the service economy in much of the same way that mass production transformed manufacturing” (Economist 2004, p. 62; Salomann et al. 2006).