Hypermarkets

In commerce, a hypermarket is a superstore combining a supermarket and a

department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of
products under one roof, including full groceries lines and general merchandise. In
theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in
one trip.
Hypermarkets, like other big-box stores, typically have business models focusing on
high-volume, low-margin sales. They generally have more than 200,000 different
brands of merchandise available at any one time. Because of their large footprints,
many hypermarkets choose suburban or out-of-town locations that are easily
accessible by automobile.
After the successes of super- and hyper-markets and amid fears that smaller stores
would be forced out of business, Some countries enacted laws that made it more
difficult to build hypermarkets and also restricted the amount of economic leverage
that hypermarket chains can impose upon their suppliers.
Lidl
Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG; is a German global discount supermarket chain, based in
Neckarsulm, Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany,[2] that operates over 10,000 stores across
Europe. The company's full name is Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG. It belongs to the holding
company Schwarz Gruppe, which also owns the store chains Handelshof and
hypermarket Kaufland.Lidl is the chief competitor of the similar German discount
chain Aldi

Criticism
Trade unions in Germany and other countries have repeatedly criticised Lidl for
mistreatment of workers, breach of European directives on working time and other
abuses. These have been published in the Black Book on the Schwarz Retail Company
published in Germany and are now also available in English.[9] While The Times notes
that Lidl managers work excessive hours, being obliged to sign out of the working
time directive when starting with the company, both The Guardian[10] and The Times[11]
in the UK amongst other allegations have reported that Lidl spies on its workforce
with cameras, makes extensive notes on employee behaviour, particularly focusing on
attempting to sack female workers who might become pregnant and also forces staff
at warehouses to do "piece-rate" work. Lidl management has denied the charges. In
Italy, in 2003, a judge in Savona sentenced Lidl for anti-union policies, a crime in that
country.[12] Lidl has been criticised in the United Kingdom and Ireland for not
allowing workers to join unions.

Kaufland
Kaufland is a German hypermarket chain part of the same group as Lidl and
Handelshof. It opened its first store in 1984 in Neckarsulm and quickly expanded to
become a leader in what was formerly East Germany. The chain operates over 1,000
stores in Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and
Croatia.
Here in my hometown, Fagaras, Kaufland is the largest Hypermarket in the city, they
have the largest choice of different brands of merchandise available at any one time,
But the prices are almost the same as Lidl and another mini-market Penny, depending
on the product, brand, quality and quantity. All of the stores here have some discounts
sometimes after a certain hour or on week-end days and the wide range of products
and merchandise keeps people here very happy, because for them hypermarkets like
these are just amazing and very useful, going back some years ago, when in Fagaras
there were only small stores where the products were lacking of everything, brand
amounts and quality and the prices werent competitive at all.