Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was founded by brothers Sam and James "Bud" Walton in nearby Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses.
Kmart Corporation is an American retail company that owns a chain of big-box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was incorporated in 1899 as S. S. Kresge Corporation and renamed Kmart Corporation in 1977. The first store with the Kmart name opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. At its peak in 1994, Kmart operated 2,486 stores globally, including 2,323 discount stores and Super Kmart Center locations in the United States. As of April 16, 2022, that number was down to nine, including just three in the continental United States. From 2005 through 2019, Kmart was a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation. Since 2019, Kmart has been a subsidiary of Transform SR Brands LLC, a privately held company that was formed in 2019 to acquire assets from Sears Holdings.
Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At its peak, Woolco had hundreds of stores in the US, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. While the American stores were closed in 1983, the chain remained active in Canada until it was sold in 1994 to rival Walmart, which was looking to enter the Canadian market. All of the former UK Woolco stores were sold by Kingfisher, which had bought the UK Woolworth business, to Gateway which subsequently sold them to Asda.
A hypermarket is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full grocery lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. The term hypermarket was coined in 1968 by French trade expert Jacques Pictet.
Sam's West, Inc. is an American chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned and operated by Walmart Inc., founded in 1983 and named after Walmart founder Sam Walton as Sam's Wholesale Club. As of January 31, 2019, Sam's Club ranks second in sales volume among warehouse clubs with $84.3 billion in sales, behind its main rival Costco Wholesale.
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.
McCrory Stores or J.G. McCrory's was a chain of five and dime stores in the United States based in York, Pennsylvania. The stores typically sold shoes, clothing, housewares, fabrics, penny candy, toys, cosmetics, and often included a lunch counter or snack bar. They also exclusively sold Oriole Records, one of the most popular 'dime store labels' from 1921 to 1938.
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.
Proffitt's was a department store chain based in Alcoa, Tennessee. The chain was founded in 1919 by David W. Proffitt and James Ellis. In 2006, the Proffitt's and McRae's stores were converted into Belk after Belk had acquired the two chains in July 2005 from Saks, Inc. At the time of their demise they operated 47 Proffitts & McRae's stores.
Hypermart USA was a demonstrator project operated by Walmart in the 1980s and 1990s, which attempted to combine groceries and general merchandise under one roof at a substantial discount. The hypermart concept was modeled after earlier efforts from other retailers, notably French retailers such as Auchan and Carrefour, and the Midwestern big retailer Meijer.
Mammoth Mart was a discount department store chain, located in the northeastern United States, primarily in the New England area. The chain was founded by Max Coffman and Henry Gornstein in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1956, and was something of a prototype for the large, downscale department store, selling housewares, hardware and clothing in stark, unfussy buildings, usually in suburban shopping center locations. Other discount department store retailers like K-Mart, Zayre, and Bradlees would subsequently expand on this concept.
Pay 'n Save was a retail company founded by Monte Lafayette Bean in Seattle, Washington, in 1940. Over the years, Pay 'n Save was the leading drugstore chain in Washington and was the owner of several Washington-based retailers, including Lamonts and Ernst. A 1984 sale of the company to The Trump Group and a 1986 attempt to transform the retailer into a bargain-basement merchandiser resulted in a loss of nearly $50 million. By 1988, Pay 'n Save was sold to Thrifty Corporation, who later sold the stores to PayLess Drug, who retired the Pay 'n Save name. As a result, most of the retailer's divisions were spun off as separate companies or shuttered. As of 2023, Pay 'n Save's membership discount chain, Bi-Mart, is the sole surviving division of the company.
Roses Discount Stores is a regional discount store in the United States with its headquarters in Henderson, North Carolina. The chain has stores in fifteen states, primarily in the South.
S.H. Heironimus Co. was an American department store chain based in Roanoke, Virginia. S.H. Heironimus opened his first store in downtown Roanoke in 1890. At its peak, Heironimus had several locations around Roanoke and Lynchburg. In 1993, Heironimus was acquired by the Texas-based retailer Dunlaps, which initially invested in improving the stores' inventory and appearance. In January 1996, the chain's flagship store in Downtown Roanoke was closed but locations in area malls remained open.
The history of Walmart, an American discount department store chain, began in 1950 when businessman Sam Walton purchased a store from Luther E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened Walton's 5 & 10. The Walmart chain proper was founded in 1962 with a single store in Rogers, expanding outside Arkansas by 1968 and throughout the rest of the Southern United States by the 1980s, ultimately operating a store in every state of the United States, plus its first stores in Canada, by 1995. The expansion was largely fueled by new store construction, although the chains Mohr-Value and Kuhn's Big K were also acquired. The company introduced its warehouse club chain Sam's Club in 1983 and its first Supercenter stores in 1998.
Ashley Landing is a shopping mall in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. It was the first indoor shopping mall in the West Ashley area of Charleston when the complex was fully completed in 1972. The center, located at 1401 Sam Rittenberg Boulevard at the fork of Old Towne Road was developed by Gate City Realty Company of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Ground was broken for the complex in 1962 with Ashley Plaza opening on April 16, 1964. At its opening the shopping center consisted of J.M. Fields Department Stores joined to a Pantry Pride supermarket, built at a cost of $1.75 million and owned by Sumar Corporation of South Carolina. The locally owned Condon's Department Store, constructed adjacent to Pantry Pride as a freestanding building, became the third tenant when it opened in 1970. The center, originally known as "Ashley Plaza" was noted for its large red and white neon pylon "Ashley Plaza" sign in the center of the parking lot that remained until 1989 when it was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo.
David's Supermarkets was an independently owned supermarket chain headquartered in Grandview, Texas, United States. Founded in 1964, David's operated 25 stores in North Central Texas and Northeast Texas, concentrated in very small communities not served by other chains.
The Mobile Festival Centre is a shopping center located in Mobile, Alabama. It was previously owned by the New York-based Kimco Realty Corporation and was sold to Mobile Festival Acquisition LLC in May 2013.
