WH Smith PLC, trading as WHSmith, is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores.
Dollarama Inc. is a Canadian dollar store retail chain headquartered in Mount Royal, Quebec. Since 2009, it has been Canada's biggest retailer of items for five dollars or less. Dollarama has over 1400 stores and is active in all of Canada; Ontario has the most stores.
Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Waterstones shop sells a range of approximately 30,000 individual books, as well as stationery and other related products.
Hamleys of London Limited, trading as Hamleys, is a British multinational toy retailer, owned by Reliance Retail. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest toy store, it was founded by William Hamley as "Noah's Ark" in High Holborn, London, in 1760. It moved to its current site on Regent Street in London's West End in 1881. This flagship store is set over seven floors, with more than 50,000 lines of toys on sale. It receives around five million visitors each year.
British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, is an online store and formerly a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. In its later years, the company began to expand into furniture, electronics, entertainment, convenience groceries and fragrance and beauty products. BHS traded from 1928 to 2016; the brand was later licenced to an online retailer.
HMV is a British music and entertainment retailer, founded in 1921. The brand is owned by JD Sports and operated by Sunrise Records, except in Japan, where it is owned and operated by Lawson.
Allders was an independent department store operating in the United Kingdom.
Mothercare plc is a British retailer that specialised in products for expectant mothers and in general merchandise for children up to eight years of age. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.
Storehouse plc, traded as Storehouse, was a large UK retail business formed by Terence Conran through the merger of various high street chains. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index before it was renamed Mothercare in 2000.
Farmers Trading Company Ltd is a New Zealand mid-market department store chain. Headquartered in Flat Bush, Auckland, Farmers operates 59 stores across New Zealand, specialising in family fashion, beauty, homewares, furniture, large appliances and whiteware.
Hodges Figgis is a long-operating bookshop in central Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1768, it is probably the third-oldest functioning bookshop in the world, after the Livraria Bertrand of Lisbon (1732) and Pennsylvania's Moravian Book Shop (1745). It was moved and expanded numerous times, and arrived at 56 Dawson Street in 1979, and gradually expanded to take its current form of four floors at 56-58 Dawson Street in 1992. It is mentioned in James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses, at the time of which it would have been situated at 104 Grafton Street, and the novel Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, and in other writings.
Poundland Limited is a British variety store chain founded in 1990. It once sold most items at the single price of £1, including clearance items and proprietary brands. The first pilot store opened in December 1990 following numerous rejections by landlords who had reservations about allowing a single-price store to operate, fearing it could adversely affect the local competition. An estimated 7 million customers shopped in Poundland every week in 2016, many being female shoppers in the C1, C2, D and E categories. Following a drop in share price of over 50%, Poundland was acquired in August 2016 by Steinhoff International for £610 million.
Richard Shops was a British high street retailer of women's fashion.
Eason Retail PLC, known as Easons or Eason, is an Irish retail company best known for selling books, stationery, cards, gifts, newspapers and magazines. Headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, it is the largest supplier of books, magazines, and newspapers in Ireland.
Broadway Shopping Centre is the principal covered shopping centre in the town centre of Bexleyheath and is the largest single covered shopping facility in the London Borough of Bexley.
The Entertainer (Amersham) Limited is a British toy retailer, founded in 1981 by Catherine and Gary Grant. It is based in Amersham, the town of its first location.
Children's World or Detsky Mir is a Russian children's retailer. Founded in June 1957, as of March 2022, the company had 1125 stores. It is the largest children's goods retailer in Russia and the CIS, with the retail chain in Russia, as well as in Belarus and Kazakhstan. In February 2017, PAO Detsky Mir listed its shares in an initial public offering. Maria Davydova is the CEO.
ToyZone was a British high-street chain of stores, predominantly selling toys and novelty items. It was best known for being one of the first online toy retailers, launching their online store in 1998. The company's online efforts were backed by TV presenter Jonathan Ross, Tom Hunter and Matthew Freud.
Otto Simon is a Dutch importer, distributor, and franchiser of toys and homeware, headquartered in Almelo.
