The purchase and sale of products and services over the Internet and new consumer habits are partly to blame for the disappearance of some historic stores in Spain.
The ease of having anything within a click's reach on Amazon has caused the downfall of some well-known establishments in the past. As has happened with certain franchises that have claimed numerous victims in the small business sector.
But there are other franchises and department stores that, despite the fact that they seemed solid, durable and indispensable, said goodbye to the streets many years ago, despite representing an era.
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Whether it's because times change and they didn't know how to react at the right time, or because poor management ended up making them disappear, these are some of the mythical stores that no longer exist in our country.
Fuencarral Market Madriz
The mythical Mercado de Fuencarral occupied number 45 of that same street in the center of the capital.
When it opened the market in 1998 under the slogan 'The shopping center for those who hate shopping centers', it managed to win over many young people from Madrid who were looking for low prices and second-hand stores.
Its definitive closure, in the summer of 2015, touched the hearts of many. Now, the famous establishment has been converted into a Decathlon.
Preciados Galleries YouTube
Pepín Fernández created them in April 1943. Until the 1960s they dominated the market and had 39 establishments throughout Spain and almost 10,000 employees.
The group was a pioneer in Spain when it came to creating department stores. In the 1970s, a strong crisis began that ended with the sale of the company to Rumasa in 1981 and it was expropriated by the State in 1983. Since the 1980s, Galerías Preciados has passed through various hands, but the debts have continued to increase.
Despite everything, it became one of the reference brands in Spain until its disappearance in 1995, when it was absorbed by El Corte Inglés.
Horta Bazaar Facebook
Bazar Horta had 2 stores from which, for decades, thousands of toys had been used by 3 generations of Madrid residents.
The store at Ayala 108 sold old toys and current toys, as well as a wide variety of models. On the other hand, in the Conde Peñalver 25 store – very close to the previous one – there were puzzles, games, stuffed animals, cars or bicycles.
Cinemascope The Newspaper
Cinemascope, the last store that was open in Barcelona dedicated to the sale of articles related to cinema, closed at the beginning of the year 2020 after 25 years of existence in the heart of the Gràcia neighborhood.
DiscoPlay discoplay.info
Discoplay, one of the most legendary record stores in Spain (along with Tipo stores) opened its first store in the basement of Madrid's Gran Vía in 1970.
Although the store played a crucial role in the musical culture of the city, without a doubt the key to its success and what the brand was really known for was its catalog of distance selling products, the so-called Discoplay Newsletter ( IDB).
As with other businesses in the music and film industry, DiscoPlay fell behind in offering online music and ended up closing in 2007.
Pryca YoutubeIt was a Spanish hypermarket chain, managed by the Carrefour Group. The brand was founded in 1976 and existed until 2000, when all its stores adopted the Carrefour brand.
Pryca was one of the first supermarkets in Spain to build its shopping centers on the outskirts of large urban concentrations, with a structure on an esplanade and free parking on the surface.
SEPU The Independent
The SEPU stores (Spanish Unique Prices) were the first chain of department stores in Spain, open long before El Corte Inglés or Galerías Preciados.
SEPU stores were founded in 1934 by businessmen of Swiss origin Henry Reisembach and Edouard Worms, and they opened their first store in Madrid, specifically at Gran Vía 32, right in the building that the gigantic and crowded Primark occupies today.
In October 2002 they had to shut down.
Simago Pinterest
Born in the 1960s, Simago was founded by three investors of Cuban origin. In 1976, together with Carrefour, it established the Pryca hypermarkets. From then on, Simago enjoyed years of great expansion based on low prices and product diversification.
In 1981, the company's turnover amounted to 24,000 million Pesetas, a respectable 144 million Euros, and it had a presence in almost all the autonomous communities. But just 5 years later its decline began. In 1997 the brand was sold to Continente, which decided to eliminate it to replace it with Champion (now Carrefour Market or Carrefour Express).
Continent The Retronostalgic
Together with Pryca, Continente was the pioneer of hypermarkets in Spain and opened its first center in Alfafar (Valencia) in 1976.
Its strategy was very similar to that carried out by Pryca: to introduce in Spain the new commercial model of the hypermarket with millions of products at good prices, located on the outskirts of large cities and with a large parking space.
Continent, controlled by Promodès, was much more moderate in its growth than Pryca, but it was a great rival, although it never ousted him. In 1985 it acquired the Spanish company DIA, which always kept its brand and corporate identity.
In the year 2000, and in order to avoid the arrival of Wall-Mart, Continente, and Carrefour (owner of Pryca), they merged and became known as Carrefour.
