A discount store or discounter offers 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.
Venture Stores, Inc. was a chain of retail stores aimed at the discount department-store market. John Geisse, formerly of Target Stores, and May Department Stores' executive vice president, Dave Babcock, founded the chain in 1968. Venture Stores expanded to operate over 70 stores with major market share in St. Louis, Chicago, and Kansas City, and expanded across various areas in the United States over a period of nearly 30 years, becoming the largest discount chain in Chicago. In January 1998, Venture Stores entered a Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed within six months.
Building #19 was a New England chain of discount closeout retailers that operated from 1964 until it declared bankruptcy in 2013. At the time of its bankruptcy, it had thirteen stores. The family that owned the chain later reopened two of the former locations as a part of a new business, The Rug Department, that was limited to rugs and related merchandise. However, these locations in Norwood and Burlington closed in 2014.
G.C. Murphy was a chain of five and dime or variety stores in the United States from 1906 to 2002. They also operated Murphy's Mart, Bargain World, Terry & Ferris and Bruners, and Cobbs stores.
Zayre was a chain of discount stores that operated in the eastern half of the United States from 1956 to 1990. The company's headquarters were in Framingham, Massachusetts. In October 1988, Zayre's parent company, Zayre Corp., sold the stores to the competing Ames Department Stores, Inc. chain. In June 1989, Zayre Corp. merged with one of its subsidiaries, The TJX Companies, parent company of T.J. Maxx, which still exists today. A number of stores retained the Zayre name until 1990, by which time all stores were either closed or converted into Ames stores.
The TJX Companies, Inc. is an American multinational off-price department store corporation, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was formed as a subsidiary of Zayre Corp. in 1987, and became the legal successor to Zayre Corp. following a company reorganization in 1989.
Carson Pirie Scott & Co. is an American department store that was founded in 1854, which grew to over 50 locations, primarily in the Midwestern United States. It was sold to the holding company of Bon-Ton in 2006, but still operated under the Carson name. The entire Bon-Ton collection of stores, including Carson's, went into bankruptcy and closed in 2018. Bon-Ton's intellectual property was quickly sold while in bankruptcy, and the new owners reopened shortly afterwards as a BrandX virtual retailer.
Grand Union Supermarkets, later known as Grand Union Family Markets and often referred to simply as Grand Union, is an American chain of grocery stores that does business in upstate New York and Vermont, and used to do business throughout most of the northeastern United States. It operated stores in other areas of the country, including the midwestern and southeastern states, and internationally in the Caribbean and Canada. The company was founded and headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, in the early 20th century. Grand Union moved again to Elmwood Park, New Jersey, and finally to Wayne, New Jersey, before the company was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001 and sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers.
TJ Maxx is an American discount department store chain. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in the country. TJ Maxx is the flagship chain of the TJX Companies. It sells men's, women's and children's apparel and shoes, toys, bath and beauty products, accessories, jewelry, and home products ranging from furniture and decor to housewares and kitchen utensils.
B. Dalton Bookseller was an American retail bookstore chain founded in 1966 by Bruce Dayton, a member of the same family that operated the Dayton's department store chain. B. Dalton expanded to become the largest retailer of hardcover books in the United States, with 779 stores at the peak of the chain's success. Located mainly at indoor shopping malls, B. Dalton competed primarily with Waldenbooks. Barnes & Noble acquired the chain from Dayton's in 1987 and continued to operate it until a late 2009 announcement that the last 50 stores would be liquidated by January 2010. B. Dalton was later revived by rebranding a Barnes & Noble location in 2022.
HomeBase was a home improvement warehouse chain in the Western United States based in Irvine, California.
Filene's Basement, also called The Basement, was a Massachusetts-based chain of department stores which was owned by Retail Ventures, Inc. until April 2009 when it was sold to Syms.
Gamble-Skogmo Inc. was a conglomerate of retail chains and other businesses that was headquartered in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Business operated or franchised by Gamble-Skogmo included Gambles hardware and auto supply stores, Woman's World and Mode O'Day clothing stores, J.M. McDonald department stores, Leath Furniture stores, Tempo and Buckeye Mart Discount Stores, Howard's Brandiscount Department Stores, Rasco Variety Stores, Sarco Outlet Stores, Toy World, Rasco-Tempo, Red Owl Grocery, Snyder Drug and the Aldens mail-order company. In Canada, retail operations consisted of Macleods Hardware, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Stedmans Department Stores, based in Toronto, Ontario. Gamble-Skogmo carried a line of home appliances, including radios, televisions, refrigerators, and freezers, under the Coronado brand name.
Food Fair, also known by its successor name Pantry Pride, was a large supermarket chain in the United States. It was founded by Samuel N. Friedland, and his brother George I. Friedland who opened the first store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the late 1920s. As of 1957, Food Fair had 275 stores, and at its peak, the chain had more than 500 stores. Friedland's family retained control of the firm through 1978, when the chain entered bankruptcy.
H. P. Wasson and Company, aka Wasson's, was an Indianapolis, Indiana, based department store chain founded by Hiram P. Wasson. Its flagship store, the H. P. Wasson & Company Building, was built in 1937 and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Ames Department Stores, Inc., was an American chain of discount stores based in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, United States. The company was founded in 1958 with a store in Southbridge, Massachusetts, and at its peak operated 700 stores in 20 states, including the Northeast, Upper South, Midwest, and the District of Columbia, making it the fourth-largest discount retailer in the country.
Fishers Big Wheel, sometimes known as just Big Wheel, was a discount department store chain based in New Castle, Pennsylvania, United States. The company operated stores under the Fisher's Big Wheel and Buy Smart names. At its peak, the chain comprised more than 100 stores in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States. The chain declared bankruptcy in 1993, selling some stores to Pamida and closing others. The chain closed in 1994.
Off-price is a trading format based on discount pricing. Off-price retailers are independent of manufacturers and buy large volumes of branded goods directly from them. The off-price retail model relies on the purchase of over-produced, or excess, branded goods at a lower price, thus being able to sell to consumers at a discount compared to other stores which purchased an initial run. Among the largest retailers of this type are TJX Companies and Ross Stores. The model is more common in countries that import fashion-oriented or household goods, as the discount role in producer countries is usually filled by factory outlets or small-scale open-air marketplaces.
