A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market. In everyday United States usage, however, "grocery store" is often used to mean "supermarket". The supermarket store format first appeared around 1930 in the United States as the culmination of almost two decades of retail innovations, and began to spread to other countries after extensive worldwide publicity in 1956.
Kmart, formerly legally registered as Kmart Corporation, now operated by Transformco, is a department store chain, and a current online retailer in the United States and its territories and operates five remaining Kmart big-box department stores — three in the US Virgin Islands and one each in Kendale Lakes, Florida ;and Tamuning, Guam.
A variety store is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, auto parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, furniture, and a selection of groceries. It usually sells them at discounted prices, sometimes at one or several fixed price points, such as one dollar, or historically, five and ten cents. Variety stores, as a category, are different from general merchandise superstores, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, grocery stores, or department stores.
Aldi is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 12,000 stores in 18 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when they took over their mother's store in Essen. The business was split into two separate groups in 1960, that later became Aldi Nord, headquartered in Essen, and Aldi Süd, headquartered in neighbouring Mülheim.
A hypermarket or superstore is a big-box store 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 grocery lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. The term hypermarket was coined in 1968 by French trade expert Jacques Pictet.
Acme Markets Inc. is a supermarket chain operating 161 stores throughout Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, the Hudson Valley of New York, and Pennsylvania and, as of 1998, is a subsidiary of Albertsons, and part of its presence in the Northeast. It is headquartered in East Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, near Malvern, a Philadelphia suburb.
A warehouse club is a retail store, usually selling a wide variety of merchandise, in which customers may buy large, wholesale quantities of the store's products, which makes these clubs attractive to both bargain hunters and small business owners. The clubs are able to keep prices low due to the no-frills format of the stores. They are distinguished from traditional cash-and-carry wholesale businesses in that their warehouses are substantially larger in size, and they do not cater purely to businesses but also allow some or all types of consumers to obtain memberships. They are also distinguished from warehouse stores in that they usually charge annual membership fees, and require presentation of proof of membership at the warehouse entrance and again at the point of sale.
McCrory Stores or J.G. McCrory's was a chain of five and dime stores in the United States based in York, Pennsylvania. The stores typically sold shoes, clothing, housewares, fabrics, penny candy, toys, cosmetics, and often included a lunch counter or snack bar.
A big-box store, a hyperstore, a supercenter, a superstore, or a megastore is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The term "big-box" references the typical appearance of buildings occupied by such stores.
Bottom Dollar Food is a defunct American soft-discount grocery chain. It was a subsidiary of Delhaize America, the U.S. division of international food retailer Delhaize Group. Its headquarters was in Salisbury, North Carolina.
Netto Marken-Discount is a German discount supermarket chain owned by the German supermarket cooperative Edeka Group, and operates mostly in the south and west of Germany. The company reached its 1000th store in 2004, then aggressively expanded to the 4000th store in 2009, making it the largest discounter in Germany.
Coles Group Limited is an Australian public company operating several retail chains. Its chief operations are primarily concerned with the sale of food and groceries through its flagship supermarket chain Coles Supermarkets, and the sale of liquor through its Coles Liquor outlets. Since its foundation in Collingwood, Victoria in 1914, Coles has grown to become the second-largest retailer in Australia after its principal rival, Woolworths, in terms of revenue.
Value Village Stores, Inc. was a Midwestern U.S.A. chain of retail stores aimed at the discount department-store market. Henry Horney, formerly of F.W. Woolworth Company founded a small, regional chain of discount stores located in the two states of Wisconsin and Illinois that opened in 1961 and operated into 1989. Horney also had a real estate company and often built small shopping malls adjoining the discount stores. The chain had no relation to the Savers Value Village chain of thrift stores.
