Free Record Shop  Free Record Shop branch in The Hague (2008) |
| Type | Retail |
|---|
| Industry | Retail |
|---|
| Founded | 1971 |
|---|
| Founder | Hans Breukhoven |
|---|
| Defunct | 2014 |
|---|
| Headquarters | , |
|---|
Area served | Benelux |
|---|
| Products | Entertainment media & services |
|---|
| Owner | Hans Breukhoven |
|---|
Free Record Shop was a chain of home entertainment stores selling products such as CDs, DVDs and video games, founded by Hans Breukhoven. Its first store opened on October 15, 1971 in Schiedam, Netherlands. At its peak, the franchise had more than 200 stores in the Netherlands and Belgium, but online available music and media supplanted the sale of physical media carriers.
It owned the entertainment products retail chain vanLeest, an Amsterdam-based flagship entertainment store called FAME, a gamestore chain called GameMania and several Build-a-Bear Workshop stores. The company operated multiple online stores using the different brand names.
In March 2008 the company announced that they had sold off the Norwegian and Finnish operations to GameStop, in order to concentrate on the Benelux market. [1]
In January 2012 the company licensed its websites to be fully managed and run by ECI Nederland BV, known for its labels ECI and Cosmox, making ECI the 2nd biggest online retailer in books and home entertainment in the Benelux. [2]
On May 24, 2013 staff and personnel were informed that Free Record Shop had declared bankruptcy. On May 28, the bankruptcy was accepted by a Dutch court. On April 22, 2014 Free Record Shop was finally declared bankrupt. [3]
Delhaize Le Lion / De Leeuw was a Belgian food retailer headquartered in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Brussels, Belgium, and operating in seven countries and on three continents. The principal activity of Delhaize Group is the operation of food supermarkets. On 24 June 2015, Delhaize reached an agreement with Ahold to merge and form a new parent company headquartered in the Netherlands: Ahold Delhaize.
Movie Gallery, Inc. was the second largest movie and game rental company in the United States and Canada, behind Blockbuster Video. The company rented and sold Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, VHS tapes, and video games. Founded in Dothan, Alabama, the company was headquartered in Dothan, and later in Wilsonville, Oregon.
Pearle Vision is an American chain of eye care stores. It is one of the largest franchised optical retailers in North America. The company was acquired by Luxottica, an Italian eye wear company, in 2004. As of December 31, 2018, Pearle Vision operated 110 corporate stores and had 419 franchises throughout North America.
The Musicland Group, Inc. was an entertainment company that ran Musicland, Sam Goody, Discount Records, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, On Cue, and the Media Play Superstore Chains. The Musicland Group was purchased by Best Buy in 2001 at the height of Musicland's success, which ultimately led to its demise. Jack Eugster was the CEO of The Musicland Group, from 1980, until February 2001. Its headquarters were in Minnetonka, Minnesota.
Loehmann's was an American retail company which started as a single store in Brooklyn, New York and grew to a chain of off-price department stores in the United States. The chain was best known for its "Back Room", where women interested in fashion could find designer clothes at prices lower than in department stores. While the largest portion of its client base was historically women, the chain also offered shoes, accessories, and men's clothing.
Goldblatt's was an American chain of local discount stores that operated in Chicago, Illinois, as well as Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Founded in 1914, the chain grew to more than twenty stores at its peak, gradually closing its stores in the 1990s and selling others to Ames before finally closing completely in 2000.
Lamonts was a chain of department stores founded in Seattle, Washington. The chain was started in 1970 when Pay 'n Save renamed its suburban branches of Rhodes, a department store chain the company acquired in 1965. Lamonts remained a division of Pay 'n Save until 1985. During the 1990s, the chain filed for bankruptcy twice and closed several stores before being sold to Gottschalks in 2000. Gottschalks itself went into bankruptcy and liquidated in 2009.
Ritz Camera & Image is a photographic retail and photofinishing specialty store, headquartered in Edison, New Jersey. The company owns and used to operate a chain throughout the United States under the names Wolf Camera, Inkley’s and Ritz Camera. In 2012, Ritz Camera was acquired by C&A Marketing.
De Slegte is an Almere, Netherlands-based store chain that sells and buys new books, secondhand books and study books. Between 1 July 2013 and 19 March 2014 De Slegte and another chain of bookstores, Selexyz, combined forces as Solare. After Solare Nederland went bankrupt in 2014, the Belgian branches were bought back by the De Slegte family and changed to their original names. Four branches in Belgium continue to operate, three branches in the Netherlands were added.
Audax Groep is a Dutch print media and retail company, active also in Belgium. Its headquarters are located in Gilze. Audax was founded in 1958 by Jacques de Leeuw. Jacques de Leeuw led the company until 2017 when he was replaced by his son, Hubert de Leeuw. In 2019 he was replaced by Casper de Nooijer. In 2020, Hubert de Leeuw took over the lead again.
Bob's Stores is a chain of 30 retail stores in the northeastern United States owned by British retail company Frasers Group. Founded as Bob's Surplus in Middletown, Connecticut, by Robert "Bob" Lapidus in 1954, the chain expanded gradually until it was acquired by TJX in 2003 and has been reacquired twice more since then. The chain targets moderate-income customers with a selection of footwear, workwear, teamwear, and activewear.
Ashley HomeStore is an American furniture store chain that sells Ashley Furniture products. Opened in 1997, the chain comprises over 2000 locations worldwide. The chain has both corporate and independently owned and operated furniture stores.
West Coast Video was a chain of video rental stores founded in 1983. The company became defunct in 2009, but some existing stores continued to use the West Coast Video banner and run independently. As of 2019, there are currently no West Coast Video stores open in North America.
Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores Inc. was an American retail company that sold home appliances, lawn and garden equipment, apparel, mattresses, sporting goods, and tools. The company had four subsidiary store formats: Sears Hometown, Sears Outlet, Sears Hardware and Appliance, and Sears Home Appliance Showrooms. Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores is based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores was founded in April 2012. The company was a spun off from Sears Holdings in 2012. By May 2019, Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores and its independent dealers and independent franchisees operated a total of 639 stores across 49 states as well as in Puerto Rico and Bermuda. On June 3, 2019, it was announced that Transform Holdco LLC would acquire Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores. As per deal, Sears Hometown might need to divest its Sears Outlet division to gain approval. The company ceased to exist on October 23, 2019, when Franchise Group acquired the Sears Outlet division and Transform Holdco acquired the rest of the company.
National Record Mart, known as NRM for short, was an American music store chain. The first music store chain in the United States, it was founded in 1937 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and operated more than 130 locations at its peak. Other stores under its ownership included Oasis, Music X, Waves Music, and Vibes. The chain filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and closed the last of its stores in 2002.
Videoland is a Dutch OTT online service provider owned by RTL Nederland. Originally it was a retail chain of video rental stores. Its main competitor is Netflix.
Sunrise Records and Entertainment Ltd., operating as Sunrise Records, is a Canadian record store chain based in Ancaster, Ontario. Currently owned by Douglas Putman, it currently operates in nine Canadian provinces. Originally operating with only 9 locations in Ontario, the chain announced a major expansion in February 2017, under which it purchased leases for 70 locations formerly occupied by HMV Canada. The chain runs approximately 85 locations across Canada.
Transform SR Brands LLC is an American privately held company formed on February 11, 2019, to acquire some of the assets of Sears Holdings Corporation. The new company is owned by Eddie Lampert's ESL Investments hedge fund of Greenwich, Connecticut. Following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Sears Holdings on October 15, 2018, Transformco purchased the surviving assets owned by Sears Holdings for $5.2 billion.
