Hypermarket

A Hypermarket (from the French hypermarché) is a shop which combines a supermarket and a department store.

The concept was pioneered by the French retail group Carrefour, which opened the first hypermarket in 1962 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris. Other major hypermarkets include:

• In the United States: Wal-Mart (known as Wal-Mart Supercenters), Fred Meyer (part of the Kroger group), Meijer, and . Stores in the United States tend to be single level enterprises with long operating hours; many of them, especially Wal-Marts, are continuously open except on major holidays (typically Thanksgiving and Christmas).
• is Britain's largest retailer.
• In Spain, the largest hypermarkets are Eroski and Hipercor (short for Hipermercado El Corte Inglés). Carrefour also operates many stores in Spain. Spanish hypermarkets tend to be located in the industrial sprawl outside of Spain's dense urban cores.

Another category of hypermarket is the membership based wholesale clubs. and are the largest in this category. Sam's Club is associated with Wal-Mart.

In California, another major hypermarket chain were the membership-based Fedco Superstores. In the mid-1990s, the hypermarket chain became defunct by the development of Wal-Mart, and other discount retailers.