Talk:Spar (retailer)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Interspar and Eurospar

This article needs information on Interspar and Eurospar, which are larger units using the SPAR logo, though I believe that in at least one country one of these is actually owned by Wal-mart. --PeterR 21:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, the SPAR name can be sub-franchised for a country by virtually anyone, and they can again sub-franchise how they like; so walmart could easily own the master franchise or indeed all the stores somewhere. BWG/BWG Foods (must merge those pages) own the SPAR franchise for Ireland and >100 of the ~300 stores but their main brand is the Irish franchise for Mace. At least here Eurospar just means the bigger stores and are owned either by BWG or a franchisee, same as any other stores can be. --Kiand 22:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Language

The imperative of "spara" - "to save", is not "spar" in Swedish. The correct form is spara. Thus, the sentence referring to this should be changed

130.240.217.153 16:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed as BS

The group apparently came about in an attempt to protect small local grocers from potentially damaging competition from supermarkets. The name is allegedly an acronym for "Society for the Protection of the Average Retailer", by analogy with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

It may be BS, but that's exactly the way I read it once. Lee M 16:37, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They're Dutch, not English. And they pre-date supermarkets. So its beyond BS, its patent BS. Kiand 17:49, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fine, can I claim money on the patent? :-/ Lee M 19:52, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Its accurate now. Well, the history is, got some even newer stats from the parent company website.

Co-op ownership

2005 article about purchase of Finnish SPAR by a co-operative

• http://www.s-kanava.fi/valtakunnallinen_en/sryhma_artikkeli?fid=s_ska_basicarticle2_01127.xml

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 18:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciatoin

Can someone PLEASE add some info on the proper pronunciation of the abbreviation (the name, that is)? Preferably a Dutch native speaker, so it can be reliable. To be precise, what bothers me is whether it's SPAR or SCHPAR/SHPAR. I see the S is short for Samenwerken, which is clearly a common S (English Z, I suppose...), but in the abbreviation, it's located before a P, which would make it 'schpar' (in German), but I'm not sure about the original Dutch pronunciation. I just know that in Germany/Austria and Slovenia they pronounce it SCHPAR and schpar only, and it would be very shameful if the correct pronunciation is simply 'spar'. I've really had enough of people who say Schneider (German) for Sneijder (Dutch) (i.e. everyone in Macedonia). --iNkubusse^? 04:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It's pronounced SPAR, with an S, not sh (I asked a Dutch guy). --Some guy who cares

Oh, thanks a lot! --iNkubusse^? 04:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

In Dutch, like in English, a single 's' is never pronounced like 'sh'/'sch'. It is indeed pronounced [spɑr] Jalwikip (talk) 07:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Up-to-date

This article should be updated to reflect current statistics. SPAR has it's 2008 figures available. And it would be nice to cite some resources other than SPAR themselves for some of the information. (Yahoo Finance, CNN, anything other than SPAR) T3hZ10n (talk) 08:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Figures

These numbers are wrong. There are not three hundred thousand SPAR stores in Belgium. That's ten times the number of worldwide McDonald's outlets! Elsewhere in the article the total worldwide SPAR locations is given as around 20,000. I think someone's added an extra digit for South Africa, Belgium, and Zimbabwe.

Why does it seem that all of the information that MATTERS uses only the information from 1 source... the retailer itself? Like the 2006 statistics? And the statement "Spar is the world’s largest food retailer, with approximately 15,000 stores in 35 countries worldwide"

On another interesting note: Google it for hours on end, search as you may. You will never find "United States" or "USA" and "Spar" mentioned anywhere in the same website (in context). This organization seems so illegit.

Their next new product... Soylent Green

T3hZ10n (talk) 07:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not clear why the lack of references to the U.S. should cast any doubt on anything. Spar doesn't operate there. And that's not unusual among big retailers - Carrefour has no presence in the U.S. either, Tesco arrived only recently and in a small way. In the opposite direction, Wal-Mart doesn't do a huge amount outside of the U.S. and Canada. Barnabypage (talk) 19:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, you see... I thought the same thing. But Google "Carrefour USA" and boom! 1st result "Carrefour ready to roll out 2nd hypermarket - Carrefour U.S.A. Inc., hypermarket." 7th result? "FRANCE/USA: Carrefour denies Wal-Mart bid talk"

And I've never even heard of Carrefour. The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world. It just seems like SPAR, the "world’s largest food retailer" would have some (even indirect) mention of the USA (the 3rd largest country by population) somewhere on the internet. It seems like this company is actively avoiding any connection.

The closest mention of the United States on any SPAR website is either "Contact us" or "re-usable" or "international sausages". There's not even an independent (blog, news, market) website that mentions the U.S. and SPAR on the same page in context (by "in context" I mean "sausages" doesn't count as a mention). SPAR doesn't operate in Serbia... but the first result for "SPAR Serbia" is "Spar to open malls and hypermarkets in Serbia"

Despite having no mention of any connection AT ALL with the U.S., SPAR says "This international dimension of the range is underlined by the number of languages on the packaging and the focus on American, Italian and Mexican style products.[1]

All of this, yet they sell "American style" products. By American I can only assume they mean "South American" or "Canadian" or "Mexican". God forbid they mention the USA, ROFL

I'm now even more confused than before, if that's possible. What exactly are you suggesting? That Spar is deliberately avoiding having stores in the U.S.? (Possibly true - presumably there are reasons it hasn't expanded into that market.) That it has them but isn't admitting to it? (Rather unlikely.)

And most important, in what way do you suggest that we should change the article as a result?

I'm not sure why the fact that Spar sells "American-style" products is important, either. Wal-Mart sells spaghetti, but isn't an Italian company and doesn't, as far as I know, have stores in Italy.

Carrefour, incidentally, departed the U.S. long ago. And it looks like the Spar plan to open up in Serbia never came to fruition. Barnabypage (talk) 15:12, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

SPAR

On the retailers international site (http://www.spar-international.com), the name is (almost) consistently written in all caps, like SPAR (like in the logo). I think therefore this page must be moved to "SPAR (retailer)", and the disambiguation page updated. Jalwikip (talk) 07:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to do it right now, but I agree this is the way to go, per MOS:CAPS. Barnabypage (talk) 07:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Headquarters

Right of the text, it says that its headquarters are in Zevenbergen, but in the text, it says the HQ is in Amsterdam. So, which one is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.142.191.98 (talk) 09:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Italy

The brand is named DESPAR in Italy, the logo is the same — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.237.24.40 (talk) 07:27, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Drive-thru SPAR

Hi, I'm unsure if drive-thru SPAR would be considered a sub-brand - I've been to this store, and it seems to be more of a service offered by the store, along with grocery and hot food, etc. Not sure where else in the article this could be placed?

MikeS (talk) 22:08, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Translation

'Spar' is not 'save' in Dutch, but in Danish. Can somebody change that? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.123.105.107 (talk) 07:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Expansion

Here is a 2005 article that could be used a source for writing about expansion of SPAR in India:

• http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/03/25/stories/2005032500831700.htm

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 18:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The German Artikel list more expansions, e. g Malawi, which is neither mentioned in the English nor on the map! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.21.22 (talk) 10:27, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

India statistics

In the table International Statistics, the number of stores in India is given as 16. This does not match with the given sales area and average store size. Either these 16 stores are gigantic (~9000 m2), or something else is wrong. Most likely, there are more than 16 stores... Also, the sales per area does not match the simple division of total sales divided by total area. Either, someone has been reading the reference wrong, or the numbers are untrustworthy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.179.170 (talk) 14:17, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

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Etymology

Hi I'm Dutch and the etymology section is pretty much 100% false. The acronym is a backronym and the phrase isn't a Dutch phrase any more than any grammatically correct sentence is a dutch phrase and spar isnt the same as spaar in Dutch (it refers to the Spruce tree, as a glance at the company's logo will tell you). Hope this helps cya145.97.224.177 (talk) 15:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of SPAR websites use a different English translation to ‘Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig’. The sites have it as: ‘All benefit from joint cooperation’. . I don't know which translation is more accurate. Is there someone who can confirm? CyaneHoek (talk) 00:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

References

international statistics

why is there a note at the end of this table saying that Denmark now has 513 stores? is there a reason that the table is not being updated with this info instead of putting it as a footnote? Dylan (talk) 22:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

SPAR Australia website says: "140 stores under the SPAR Australia brand in 2015". Should the table be updated with new figures for 2015? CyaneHoek (talk) 00:48, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The 2015 country figures are available from SPAR International 10:13, 20 July 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by R3t4!lin1e (talk • contribs)

References

Official website

The official website of the SPAR brand is spar-international.com/ (in English) and not spar.nl - this is only a SPAR country website (available in Dutch). R3t4!lin1e (talk) 10:19, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

References

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