Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usually referred to as black goods due to many products being housed in black or dark casings. This term is used to distinguish them from "white goods" which are meant for housekeeping tasks, such as washing machines and refrigerators, although nowadays, these would be considered black goods, some of these being connected to the Internet. In British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers. In the 2010s, this distinction is absent in large big box consumer electronics stores, which sell entertainment, communication and home office devices, light fixtures and appliances, including the bathroom type.
Future Shop was a Canadian electronics store chain. It was established in 1982 by Hassan Khosrowshahi. By 1990, the chain had become the country's largest retailer of computer and consumer electronics. In January 2013, the company operated 139 locations across Canada.
Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebranded under its current name with an emphasis on consumer electronics in 1983.
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.
Dick Smith Electronics Holdings Limited was an Australian chain of retail stores that sold consumer electronics goods, hobbyist electronic components, and electronic project kits. The chain expanded successfully into New Zealand and unsuccessfully into several other countries. The company was founded in Sydney in 1968 by Dick Smith and owned by him and his wife until they sold 60% to Woolworths in 1980, and the remaining 40% two years later.
Consumers Distributing was a catalogue store in Canada and the United States that operated from 1957 to 1996. At its peak, the company operated 243 outlets in Canada and 217 in the United States, including stores in every province in Canada and in the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California and Nevada.
The NPD Group, Inc. is an American market research company founded on September 28, 1966, and based in Port Washington, New York. In 2017, NPD ranked as the 8th largest market research company in the world, according to the independent AMA Gold Report Top 50 report. The NPD Group operates in 20 countries, across more than 20 industries.
Harvey Norman is a large Australian-based, multi-national retailer of furniture, bedding, computers, communications and consumer electrical products. It mainly operates as a franchise, with the main brand and all company-operated stores owned by ASX-listed Harvey Norman Holdings Limited. As of 2022, there are 304 company-owned and franchised stores in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South-East Asia operating under the Harvey Norman, Domayne and Joyce Mayne brands in Australia, and under the Harvey Norman brand overseas.
Harris Scarfe is an Australian retailer that sells bed linen, kitchenware, homewares, electrical appliances and apparel. It was founded in 1849 in Adelaide, South Australia and has more than 50 stores nationally.
JB Hi-Fi Limited is an Australian consumer electronics and home appliances retail company. It is publicly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its headquarters are located in Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria.
Fretter was an electronics and major appliance retailer based in Detroit, founded in the 1950s by Oliver "Ollie" Fretter.
Krazy Krazy Audio Video Warehouse was a Canadian retailer of consumer audiovisual electronics. In operation from 1983 to 2009, the chain began to decline in the late 1990s and 2000s due to the changing consumer electronics market. Although no longer operating as a national chain, a few former franchise locations remain in business as independently operated local stores.
H. H. Gregg, Inc., is an American online retailer and former retail chain of consumer electronics and home appliances in the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast United States, that operated stores in 20 states including Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Valor Group LLC purchased the brand from the company's bankruptcy trustee for $400,000 in 2017. H.H. Gregg closed all stores in liquidation and had been operating as an online-only retailer since August that year. Founded in Princeton, Indiana, in 1955, H. H. Gregg was headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, when it ceased operating. Its retail offerings included home entertainment video and audio products, computers, and other selected consumer electronics; home appliances, such as refrigerators, ranges, dishwashers, freezers, washers, and dryers; and other products and services, including mattresses. The company announced on November 24, 2008, that it would begin selling popular gaming systems such as Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Twice is a trade publication launched by publisher Richard Ekstract in 1987, currently owned by Future US along with website serves the information needs of retailers, distributors and manufacturing/suppliers in the consumer electronics and major appliance industries. TWICE is an acronym for This Week In Consumer Electronics.
Bing Lee is an Australian retailing company, a chain of superstores specialising in consumer electronics, computer and telecommunication goods. Bing Lee is the largest privately held electrical retail business in New South Wales with 35 Bing Lee branded stores alongside its new premium retail Signature Appliance showroom, as well as the subsidiary Miele Specialist store and the La Cornue showroom in Surry Hills.
WOW Sight and Sound was an Australian audio visual retailer. Founded in 2003 with a single store in Townsville, it grew to 15 stores in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory.
Pepkor is a South African-based investment and holding company focused on the discount and value consumer retail and fintech markets. The majority of operations are in South Africa, and operations extend to other African countries and Brazil. It manages retail brands, selling predominantly clothing, footwear, and homeware products, in addition to household furniture, appliances, consumer electronics, and building materials.
ABC Warehouse, Inc. or ABC Appliance, Inc. is a chain of retail appliance and electronics stores based in Pontiac, Michigan. It was founded in 1963 by Gordon Hartunian, and operates 42 stores in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. The chain also operates 16 Mickey Shorr Mobile Electronics stores and 2 Hawthorne Home Appliances & Electronics stores. They are known for their advertising motto "The Closest Thing To Wholesale". In the last few years ABC has added mattresses and furniture to their retail offerings, including products from Sealy & Lane.
A consumer electronics store, in the United States and some other countries, is a physical store that sells consumer electronics. As technology has progressed, the United States has known variations such as phonograph dealers, radio stores, hi-fi stores, stereo stores, and audio video stores.
Newmark and Lewis was a chain of consumer electronics stores described by The New York Times as an appliance-store chain. It was founded by Edward Newmark and Richard David Lewis in 1924. Problems of the industry of which it was part included cutthroat price competition, which caused low profit margins, and slow consumer purchasing cycles, the latter because of "lack of fresh products." When it closed in 1992, it had 26 remaining stores, having earlier closed even more than that.
