 | |
 Lillywhites at Regent Street, London, pictured in 2015 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | clothing, sports equipment |
| Parent | Frasers Group |
| Website | lillywhites.com |
Lillywhites is a sports retailer based at Piccadilly Circus, London, United Kingdom. It is a division of Frasers Group. [1]
In the 19th century, several members of the Lillywhite family were leading cricketers; another, Fred Lillywhite, organised the first overseas tour by an England team to North America in 1859. In 1866, the Lillywhite "No. 5" football was chosen for a London v. Sheffield challenge match organised by The Football Association; the same model in the early years of the FA Cup and was the ancestor of the International Football Association Board's modern ball specifications. [2] In 1886, the Ivy League chose the Lillywhite "No. J" as the standard for American college footballs. [3]
The shop has been based at its current location of 25 Regent St. on Piccadilly Circus since 1925, catering to the London market with specialist departments for croquet and real tennis. In 1930, Messrs Lillywhite Ltd. supplied pilot Amy Johnson with her flying kit. [4] Lillywhites' policy was to compete on quality products (which were charged at premium prices). For many years the company was owned by Forte Group. Until 2002, Lillywhites also had locations in other major cities in the United Kingdom including Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne and Nottingham, with the Leeds store being a large five-storey building that opened in 1996 on The Headrow in the former Schofields department store. In the same year, Lillywhites was bought by the Portuguese company Jerónimo Martins. Lillywhites lost its royal warrant in 2003.[ citation needed ]
In the face of competition from other retailers offering more goods at lower prices, Lillywhites fell into financial difficulty. In 2002 Jerónimo Martins sold the company to Sports World International, the owner of the Sports World retail chain, and some of the outlying stores were rebranded as Sports World. A number of exceptions to this are the branches at Rotherham Retail Park, Lakeside Shopping Centre in West Thurrock, Essex, Dalton Park, Murton and Clarks Village, Street, Whiteley and The Glades, Bromley. The store in Leeds city centre was closed in 2004. The Lakeside branch was closed in 2010 and The Glades, Bromley store was closed in 2012.[ citation needed ]
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction.
Waitrose Limited, trading as Waitrose & Partners, is a brand of British supermarkets, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. It was acquired in 1937 by employee-owned retailer John Lewis Partnership, which still sells groceries under the brand. Its head offices are located in Bracknell, Berkshire.
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.
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.
TOPSHOP is a British fast-fashion company, which specialises in women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS on 1 February 2021. It now operates via the ASOS website and app, as well as being sold in Nordstrom stores in the US on Nordstrom.com. TOPSHOP previously had around 510 shops worldwide.
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.
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House of Fraser and Frasers are a British department store chain with 29 locations across the United Kingdom, part of Frasers Group. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891, it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, and after the Second World War a large number of acquisitions transformed the company into a national chain.
Lewis's was a chain of British department stores that operated from 1856 to 2010. The owners of Lewis's went into administration several times, including in 1991. The first store, which opened in Liverpool city centre, became the flagship of the chain. Several stores in the chain were bought in 1991 by the company Owen Owen and continued to operate under the Lewis's brand name for several years, but after the closure of the Manchester store in 2001, only the original Liverpool store continued to trade under the Lewis's name. This store was sold in 2007 to Vergo Retail Ltd and closed in 2010.
Schofields was a department store that operated on the Headrow in Leeds, England, from 1901 to 1996. For much of the 20th century Schofields was regarded as being the pinnacle of shopping in Leeds city centre.
John Lewis & Partners is a British brand of high-end department stores operating throughout the United Kingdom, with concessions also located in Ireland. The brand sells general merchandise as part of the John Lewis Partnership. It was created by Spedan Lewis, son of the founder, John Lewis, in 1929. From 1925 to 2022, the chain had a policy that it would always at least match a lower price offered by a national high street competitor; this pledge was known by the name "Never Knowingly Undersold".
A catalog merchant is a form of retailing. The typical merchant sells a wide variety of household and personal products, with many emphasizing jewelry. Unlike a self-serve retail store, most of the items are not displayed; customers select the products from printed catalogs in the store and fill out an order form. The order is brought to the sales counter, where a clerk retrieves the items from the warehouse area to a payment and checkout station.
The Glades is a shopping centre in Bromley, England. It has a total of 135 stores trading from a combined floorspace of 464,000 sq ft (43,100 m2). Opened as The Glades on Tuesday 22 October 1991, the centre is currently jointly owned by Alaska Permanent Fund (85%) and the London Borough of Bromley (15%). In October 2015 it was confirmed that Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation had agreed to acquire the stakes held by intu Properties and CGNU/Aviva in a £177m deal, giving the APFC 85% holding of the mall and taking the Bromley centre out of intu's network. The sale completed towards the end of 2016.
Jerónimo Martins SGPS, SA (JM) is a Portuguese corporate group that operates in food distribution and specialised retail. It operates more than 4,900 stores in Portugal, Poland, and Colombia.
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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.
The Perfume Shop is a United Kingdom perfume retailer founded in 1992 and owned by A.S. Watson Ltd, which is part of the A.S. Watson Group. The A.S. Watson Group acquired The Perfume Shop in 2005. The company is based in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, with a distribution centre in Dunstable. It is the second largest fragrance retailer in the UK.
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