Tesco plc is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen in Hackney, London, in 1919. In 2011, it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in the world measured by revenues. It has shops in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. It is the market leader of groceries in the UK.
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.
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.
Virgin Megastores is an international entertainment retailing chain, founded in early 1976 by Richard Branson as a record shop on London's Oxford Street.
Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland, and is still operating as a franchise in seven Middle East countries. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish department store chain Magasin du Nord. In its final years, its headquarters were within the premises of its flagship store in Oxford Street, London. The range of goods sold included middle-to-high-end clothing, beauty, household items, and furniture.
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.
Discount stores offer a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down costs.
ICA Gruppen AB is a Swedish retailer franchise with a focus on food and health. The group also owns a bank, real estate division and a pharmacy chain.
The Warehouse Group (TWG) was established by Stephen Tindall in 1982 and is the largest retail group in operation in New Zealand. It is a corporate conglomerate that consists of The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery and Noel Leeming.
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.
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.
In the Republic of Ireland, the retail sector provides one of the largest sources of employment in the economy, representing over 12% of the workforce. As of 2017, approximately 40,000 wholesale and retail businesses employed almost 280,000 people in Ireland, with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment reporting that 90% of these businesses were Irish-owned.
New Look is a British global fashion retailer with a chain of high street shops. It was founded in 1969. The chain sells womenswear, menswear, and clothing for teens. New Look was owned by private equity groups Apax Partners and Permira, and founder Tom Singh, until May 2015 when it was acquired by Brait SE (SA) for £780 million.
Coop amba, formerly FDB, is a cooperative based in Denmark. The coop has 2 million members and three subsidiaries. The Coop Danmark subsidiary operates the retail store chains of Kvickly, Brugsen, SuperBrugsen, Dagli'Brugsen and 365discount as well as the furniture company FDB Møbler. They previously ran the now discontinued chains Irma, Fakta & LokalBrugsen. The last two subsidiaries comprise Coop Bank and Coop Invest.
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.
Jysk A/S is a Danish retail chain specializing in household goods, including mattresses, furniture, and interior décor. As Denmark's largest international retailer, Jysk operates over 3,100 stores across 51 countries. The name "Jysk" reflects the company's Danish roots. It was founded by Lars Larsen, who opened the first store on Silkeborgvej in the Danish city of Aarhus in April 1979. Today, Jysk is owned by the family of its founder through the Lars Larsen Group, a holding company that also fully or partly owns furniture chains such as ILVA, IDÉmøbler, IDdesign, Bolia.com, and Sengespecialisten. The company’s logo features a goose, symbolically linked to the brand’s history. Known for its Scandinavian design, Jysk is sometimes referred to as a small-scale Danish IKEA.
Target Canada Co. was the Canadian subsidiary of the Target Corporation, the eighth-largest retailer in the United States. Formerly headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, the subsidiary formed with the acquisition of Zellers store leases from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in January 2011. Target Canada opened its first store in March 2013, and by January 2015 was operating 133 locations throughout Canada. Its main competition included Walmart Canada, Loblaws, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Canadian Tire.
Pandora A/S is a Danish jewelry manufacturer and retailer founded in 1982 by Per Enevoldsen. The company started as a family-run jewelry shop in Copenhagen.
Søstrene Grene is a family-owned Danish multi-category retail chain. It was founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 1973 by married team Inger Grene and Knud Cresten Vaupell Olsen.
