Inter IKEA Systems B.V., trading 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.
Iceland Foods Limited, trading as Iceland, is a British supermarket chain headquartered in Deeside, Wales. It mainly sells frozen foods, including prepared meals and vegetables, alongside non-frozen grocery items such as produce, meat, dairy and dry goods. The company also operates a chain of shops called The Food Warehouse.
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.
MetroCentre is a shopping centre and entertainment complex in the Dunston area of Gateshead. It is located on the former site of Dunston Power Station, near to the River Tyne.
Woolworths was a British high-street retail chain. At its height, it operated as Woolworths Group PLC, which included other companies such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK, and book and resource distributor Bertram Books.
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.
GUS plc was a FTSE 100 retailing, manufacturing and financial conglomerate based in the United Kingdom. GUS was an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's name before 2001, while it was also known as the Glorious Gussies amongst stockbrokers. The company started out as Universal Stores, a mail order business created by the Rose family. In 1931, Isaac Wolfson joined the mail order company and would, through a series of takeovers, turn it into a retail, manufacturing and financial conglomerate, becoming Europe's biggest mail order firm and with over 2,700 physical stores. His son, Leonard Wolfson, followed him as chairman, to be succeeded by his nephews David Wolfson (1996–2000) and Victor Barnett (2000–2002). During the 1980s, the business divested much of its physical retail and manufacturing subsidiaries under Leonard Wolfson to concentrate on mail order, property and finance. In October 2006, the company was split into two separate companies: Experian which continues to exist, and Home Retail Group which was bought by Sainsbury's in 2016.
Netto is a Danish discount supermarket operating in Denmark, Germany and Poland. Netto is owned by Salling Group.
Allders was an independent department store operating in the United Kingdom.
A big-box store 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.
Habitat is a brand of household furnishings in the United Kingdom and the main homewares brand within the Sainsbury's group.
MFI Group Limited was a British furniture retailer, operating under the MFI brand. The company was one of the largest suppliers of kitchens and bedroom furniture in the United Kingdom, and operated mainly in retail parks in out of town locations. Anecdotally, it was said at one stage that one in three Sunday lunches in the United Kingdom were cooked in a kitchen from MFI, and 60% of British children were conceived in a bedroom from MFI.
Clas Ohlson is a Swedish home improvement chain and mail-order firm that specialises in hardware, home, leisure, electrical and multimedia products. It is one of the biggest of its type in Scandinavia, with more than 230 Clas Ohlson stores as of May 2020. Stores also exist in Norway and Finland. Many of the products sold in the stores are own-label items. The company uses the house brands of Asaklitt, Capere, Cocraft, Cotech, Coline, Exibel and Clas Ohlson.
Jysk A/S is a Danish retail chain, selling household goods such as mattresses, furniture, and interior décor. Jysk is the largest Danish retailer operating internationally with over 3,100 stores in 51 countries. Jysk was founded by Lars Larsen, who opened the first store on Silkeborgvej in the Danish city of Aarhus in April 1979. It is owned by the founder Lars Larsen's family through the holding company Lars Larsen Group which also owns wholly or partly the furniture chains ILVA, IDÉmøbler, IDdesign, Bolia.com, and Sengespecialisten. The logo displays a goose, which has a historical thread to the brand. Due to the Scandinavian design for its products, it is also called the Danish IKEA in a small format.
Best Buy Europe Distributions Ltd. was a retail joint venture owned by the United States based electronics retailer Best Buy Inc and United Kingdom based mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse. The company was formed by Best Buy's purchase of 50% of The Carphone Warehouse's retail division in May 2008. Best Buy branded superstores opened in the United Kingdom beginning on April 30, 2010, with a store in Thurrock, Essex. Best Buy was due to open its first stores in the United Kingdom in 2009, but in March 2009, the firm postponed this until 2010, with plans for up to two hundred stores eventually. Carphone originally intended to open up to two hundred Big Box stores in Europe by 2013, but this goal was reduced to one hundred. On November 6, 2011, Carphone Warehouse announced its intention to close the eleven Best Buy "big box" format stores. On 14 January 2012, the Best Buy Europe joint venture was discontinued, with all eleven stores and the transactional website (www.bestbuy.co.uk) closing on that day.
Modelzone is a scale model brand owned by British retailer WHSmith, of scale models and related products are sold in WHSmith stores and online.
IDEmøbler is a Danish chain of furniture stores, founded in 1969. In some countries, it is known by the name of its holding company IDesign. The company runs over 30 stores in Denmark and has subsidiaries and affiliates in the Nordic countries and the Middle East. For a long time, IDEmøbler's parent company was called IDdesign A/S, which in addition to IDEmøbler operated ILVA in Denmark and Sweden, as well as IDdesign in Europe and the Middle East. In 2019, the chain was merged with ILVA.
Netto was a discount supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. Netto arrived in the United Kingdom in December 1990, as part of an internationalisation process by its Danish owner, Salling Group. By May 2010, it operated 193 stores, before it was sold to Asda. In June 2014, Salling Group returned Netto to the United Kingdom, as a 50:50 joint venture with Sainsbury's.
Retail apocalypse refers to the closing of numerous brick-and-mortar retail stores, especially those of large chains, beginning around 2010 and accelerating due to the mandatory closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A furniture retailer, furniture store or furniture shop is a retail businesses that sells furniture and related accessories. Furniture retailers usually sell general furniture, seats and upholstered suites, and specialised items produced for a commission. They may sell a range of styles to suit different homes and personal tastes, or specialise in particular styles like retro style furniture.
