POI #4: Le Marque Felix Potin



 


 


 


 

PARIS Immeuble Félix Potin

Location of Le Marque Felix Potin

Description of Le Marque Felix Potin

Felix Potin was a French trader and entrepreneur that created a grocery business during the late nineteenth century. He purchased his first shop in 1844 on 28 Rue Coquenard, and due to its popularity and success, quickly expanded in both size and number of stores throughout the 1860s, becoming the most famous food brand in the city, and even developing his own factories to both increase and innovate the production of goods sold.[1] Potin was a very intelligent entrepreneur who realized that the current supply chain needed to be modified, which led to his adoption of a new and more distinct business model, that consisted of showing products with their prices clearly displayed. Unlike the common method of the time, where products were weighed and packaged in the store at the time of sale, the Potin stores had their products already prepared for sale, with prices marked and labelled with the company logo.[2] The store received very high volumes of goods from the companies’ factories, which were then sold at standardized prices. The opening of company factories assisted in reducing the number of intermediaries between the manufacturer and the store itself. This strategy aimed to sell very high numbers of products at reduced profit margins, which was similar in style to that of goods sold in department stores, but never of food up until this point.[3] Potin was considered to be the pioneer of the chain-and-branch, bulk-buying model of retail, which unified both distribution and sales under the same brand.[4] This new and innovative business model was a successful propaganda strategy, and the current product business model has its roots in the business strategy of Potin, which shows just how important and influential his ideas were.

The specific store location that we have featured in our walking tour was created I 1864 on 47 Boulevard Malesherbes, which would have been a short distance away from the neighbourhood of our fictional child. Potin played a very generous role in regards to the citizens of Paris during

the siege of the city, by keeping his food prices the same. This may not sound like a lot, but the cost of manufacturing and distributing products dramatically increased during this time, which shows that Potin valued the well-being of his customers over profiting from them. Felix Potin died in 1871, and left his successful business empire to his family, and has continued to be a family business throughout most of its history.[5] After the First World War, the business took on a franchise model, and later became a corporation in 1924. In 1995, the company went bankrupt, and the businesses collapsed a year later. While most of the architectural store buildings still exist, the Felix Potin brand has ceased to exist in current French society.

The grand, antique design of the Felix Potin grocery stores was developed by architect M. Lemaresquier, who created a modern glass dome that illuminated the interior of the Boulevard Malesherbes store.[6] It also boasted highly decorated walls and wooden furniture that displayed the products. This antique look was achieved through the implementation of modern concrete and steel structures, featuring stone, marble, mosaics, paintings, railings, and lamps.[7] Overall, Felix Potin became the most well-known grocer in the Paris square, and gave growth to the grocery store business as a whole.

This particular site is of importance to our walking tour, because this store is where our fictional child and her family would have purchased their food supplies before the outbreak of the war, and where they would have also queued up to receive their rationed food supplies during the war itself. The transition from having the freedom to purchase your usual and preferred food supplies, to being forced to collect rationed supplies of particular food products based on both their supply and demand would have been quite drastic.

End Notes

[1] "Felix Potin Building." Wikiarquitectura.

[2] "Le Marque Felix Potin." Historique.

[3] "Felix Potin Building." Wikiarquitectura.

[4] "Felix Potin Building." Wikiarquitectura.

[5] "Felix Potin Building." Wikiarquitectura.

[6] "Le Marque Felix Potin." Historique.

[7] "Le Marque Felix Potin." Historique.


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