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The Skaggs Family, starting from a small frontier town in southern Idaho, came to have an important impact on merchandising across much of the United States. During most of the 20th century, the Skaggs name became prominent on hundreds of store fronts throughout the West. But as that name now fades from the commercial scene, it is important to show how a number of widely known commercial chains owe their origin to this one, entrepreneurial family. If one examines the origins of a wide range of grocery and drug store enterprises across the West and Midwest, the Skaggs names is likely to arise. The father was a relatively poor Baptist minister, but he and six of his sons, with varying degrees of collaboration, introduced in the early decades of the 20th century, two very important changes in merchandising: the low-margin, cash-and-carry approach to business and the process of rapidly growing a multitude of common outlets, now called chain stores. Their entrepreneurial zeal became a major retailing force resulting in large, well-known retail chains that carried not only the Skaggs name itself, but names like Safeway, Osco, PayLess, Albertsons, Longs Drug Stores, Katz and others. == Biography == It was around 1887 when Samuel M. Skaggs, with his wife Nancy (E. Long) and two of his brothers and their families, moved from Tennessee to Missouri.() There Sam tried farming, managed a store and post office in Cato, Missouri. Sometime between 1888 and 1900 he entered the Baptist Ministry and by 1900 settles in Newton County, Missouri. At the time of their move from Tennessee, Sam and Nancy have five children and in Missouri they were to have ten more. Of the first eleven children, nine were still alive in 1900.〕 Another, but not independent, account by R. Skaggs Some of the grocery store images were obtained from David Gwynn〔}} Of these there were six sons who came to be known by their initials: :Pepper Oscar Skaggs, born January 7, 1881, became O.P. :Aron Sylvester Skaggs, born January 14, 1886, became S.A. :Marion Barton Skaggs, born April 5, 1888, became M.B. :Loronzo L. Skaggs, born May 5, 1891, became L.L. :Samuel Olnie Skaggs, born November 14, 1895, became L.S. :Levi Justin Skaggs, born May 4, 1899, became L.J. Sometime between 1908 and 1910, Samuel Skaggs brought his family from Missouri to Idaho. As a minister of a small group in a very small frontier town, American Falls, Idaho, he needed additional support for his large family. So, he decided to open a grocery store, but to favorably compete with the few that were already operating, he decided to change their business model from one of credit accounts, which were tailored to the sporadic and seasonal income of farmers, to a cash-only basis. Attracting customers to this simpler arrangement would make sense only if he could sell for much less than his competitors. While the margin would be lower, he would nevertheless avoid the substantial risk of non-payment of accounts. To drive down the wholesale price of the groceries he needed, he would buy them in larger lots than his competitors. In those days large lots were defined by some fraction of a railroad carload and because American Falls was a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad, this afforded Sam Skaggs an opportunity to buy and sell for less. Perhaps more important to his expansion-oriented sons than to Sam, the savings of large-lot buying would only increase as more stores came on line. To portray the evolution and impact of this kind of merchandising as practiced by the Skaggs family and to try to track the extensive creation of stores and their ownership transfers, a nearly 100-year chronology is used. In it lies the genesis and design of much of the modern merchandising . The Skaggs family anticipated what customers wanted and so the Skaggs brothers and their merchandising model comprise an important thread in the fabric of the present commercial world. This chronology begins with Sam Skaggs moving his growing family west: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Skaggs family」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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