Inter IKEA Systems B.V., doing business as IKEA, is a Swedish multinational conglomerate that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad and currently legally headquartered in the Netherlands, IKEA has been the world's largest furniture retailer since 2008. The brand used by the group is derived from an acronym that consists of the founder's initials, and those of Elmtaryd, the family farm where he was born, and the nearby village Agunnaryd.
Carrefour is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. The seventh-largest retailer in the world by revenue, it operates a chain of hypermarkets, groceries stores and convenience stores, which as of December 2021, comprises 13,894 stores in over 30 countries.
Ryman is a stationery retail company with 205 outlets nationwide in the United Kingdom. The website and stores provide a wide range of stationery and office supplies for homes and businesses, with its headquarters in Crewe, Cheshire.
Next plc (styled as NEXT) is a British multinational clothing, footwear and home products retailer, which has its headquarters in Enderby, England. It has around 700 stores, of which circa 500 are in the United Kingdom, and circa 200 across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Next is the largest clothing retailer by sales in the United Kingdom, having overtaken Marks & Spencer in early 2012 and 2014. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
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 comprises The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Torpedo7, Noel Leeming, 1-day, and TheMarket.
British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, was 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.
Sir Terence Orby Conran was a British designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer. He founded the Design Museum in Shad Thames, London in 1989. The British designer Thomas Heatherwick said that Conran "moved Britain forward to make it an influence around the world." Edward Barber, from the British design team Barber & Osgerby, described Conran as "the most passionate man in Britain when it comes to design, and his central idea has always been 'Design is there to improve your life.'" The satirist Craig Brown once joked that before Conran "there were no chairs and no France."
Habitat, is a brand of household furnishings in the United Kingdom and the main homewares brand within the Sainsbury's group.
Casino Group or Casino Guichard-Perrachon is a French mass-market retail group. It was founded on 2 August 1898 by Geoffroy Guichard under the corporate name Guichard-Perrachon & Co.
Ikano Group is a privately held international group of companies with the parent company Ikano S.A. based in Luxembourg. It was originally a part of IKEA, which was founded by Ingvar Kamprad, then became independent in 1988, and has since been owned by the Kamprad family.
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.
Big C, is a grocery and general merchandising retailer headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. Big C is as of 2016 Thailand's second-largest hypermarket operator after Lotus's. It has operations in five countries, namely Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong.
Heal's is a British furniture retail company comprising seven stores, selling a range of furniture, lighting and home accessories. In 2001, a guide published in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum wrote that for over two centuries Heal's had been known for promoting modern design and for employing talented young designers.
Distribuidora Internacional de Alimentación, S.A. (DIA) is a Spanish multinational hard-discount supermarket chain founded in 1979. DIA is the largest franchiser company in Spain and the fourth largest food sector franchiser in Europe. The Company operates under DIA brand in Spain, Argentina and Brazil and under Minipreço brand in Portugal. It has also operates 1.051 Clarel beauty stores in Spain.
Francfranc Corporation is a Japanese furniture and home décor company founded in Tokyo in 1990 by Fumio Takashima.
Hygena is a dormant brand of fitted kitchen and furniture in the United Kingdom.
Fabindia is an Indian chain store retailing garments, home-decor, furnishings, fabrics and products handmade by craftspeople across rural India. Established in 1960 by John Bissell, an American working for the Ford Foundation, New Delhi, Fabindia started out exporting home furnishings, before stepping into domestic retail in 1976, when it opened its first retail store in Greater Kailash, New Delhi. The chairman of the company is John's son, William Nanda Bissell. As of July 2020, Fabindia operated 327 stores across India and 14 international stores.
Grupo Éxito is a South American retail company. It operates 2,606 stores in South America. The stores sell a wide range of food and non food products. Though originally a textiles maker and seller recent acquisitions have further diversified the business making it a major grocer. At its hypermarkets it sells both packaged foods and perishables in addition to department store type products ranging from electronics to furniture.
Martin David Roberts was a retail design expert, author and lecturer, and chief executive of Connecticut-based Martin Roberts Design.
