A convenience store, bodega, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as tea, coffee, groceries, fruits, vegetables, snacks, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery tickets, over-the-counter drugs, toiletries, newspapers and magazines. In some jurisdictions, convenience stores are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks, although many jurisdictions limit such beverages to those with relatively low alcohol content, like beer and wine. The stores may also offer money order and wire transfer services, along with the use of a fax machine or photocopier for a small per-copy cost. Some also sell tickets or recharge smart cards, e.g. OPUS cards in Montreal or include a small deli. They differ from general stores and village shops in that they are not in a rural location and are used as a convenient supplement to larger stores.
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company and one of the pioneers of the five-and-dime store. It was among the most successful American and international five-and-dime businesses, setting trends and creating the modern retail model that stores follow worldwide today.
Zellers was a Canadian discount store chain founded by Walter P. Zeller in 1931. It was acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1978, and after a series of acquisitions and expansions, peaked with 350 locations in 1999. However, fierce competition and an inability to adapt during the retail apocalypse resulted in Zellers losing significant ground in the 2000s.
Sears Canada Inc. was a publicly-traded Canadian company affiliated with the American-based Sears department store chain. In operation from 1952 until January 14, 2018, and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company began as Simpsons-Sears—a joint venture between the Canadian Simpsons department store chain and the American Sears chain—which operated a national mail order business and co-branded Simpsons-Sears stores modelled after those of Sears in the U.S. After the Hudson's Bay Company purchased Simpsons in 1978, the joint venture was dismantled and Hudson's Bay sold its shares in the joint venture to Sears; with Sears now fully owning the company, it was renamed Sears Canada Inc. in 1984. In 1999, Sears Canada acquired the remaining assets and locations of the historic Canadian chain Eaton's. From 2014, Sears Holdings owned a 10% share in the company. ESL Investments was the largest shareholder of Sears Canada.
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids and various others. The company was founded in 1948; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area.
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.
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.
Bunnings Group Limited, trading as Bunnings Warehouse or Bunnings, is an Australian household hardware and garden centre chain. The chain has been owned by Wesfarmers since 1994, and has stores in Australia and New Zealand.
Kmart Australia Limited is an Australian chain of retail department stores owned by the Kmart Group division of Wesfarmers.
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 Early Learning Centre (ELC) is a British retailer that sells toys aimed at younger children. It is part of The Entertainer. It was a subsidiary of Mothercare until 2019.
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.
Aeon Co., Ltd., formerly Jusco Co., Ltd., is a Japanese diversified retail holding company. It is one of the largest retail companies in Japan, owning Aeon hypermarkets, Aeon Mall and Aeon Town shopping malls, Daiei, MaxValu, Maruetsu, and My Basket supermarkets, Ministop convenience store, Welcia drugstore, and Aeon Cinema movie theaters.
Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, also known as Shoppers Food Warehouse, is a chain of 22 supermarkets located in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas. Shoppers has fresh produce, Swift Angus beef, Smithfield natural pork, all-natural chicken, Dietz & Watson delis, fresh seafood, steamed shrimp, as well as hot food bars.
Gamble-Skogmo Inc. was a conglomerate of retail chains and other businesses that was headquartered in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Business operated or franchised by Gamble-Skogmo included Gambles hardware and auto supply stores, Woman's World and Mode O'Day clothing stores, J.M. McDonald department stores, Leath Furniture stores, Tempo and Buckeye Mart Discount Stores, Howard's Brandiscount Department Stores, Rasco Variety Stores, Sarco Outlet Stores, Toy World, Rasco-Tempo, Red Owl Grocery, Snyder Drug and the Aldens mail-order company. In Canada, retail operations consisted of Macleods Hardware, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Stedmans Department Stores, based in Toronto, Ontario. Gamble-Skogmo carried a line of home appliances, including radios, televisions, refrigerators, and freezers, under the Coronado brand name.
Alworths was a chain of 18 high-street retail stores created in 2009 out of some of the former stores of Woolworths plc in the United Kingdom. The new company entered administration in 2011, and 15 branches were acquired by Poundstretcher.
QD Commercial Group Holdings Limited, trading as QD Stores is an independently owned discount retailer operating in the United Kingdom, primarily in East Anglia and the East Midlands regions. Products stocked include a mixture of items for the home and garden, basic groceries and a range of clothing and footwear. The company also run Cherry Lane Garden Centres.
The retail format influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are exchanged. In some parts of the world, the retail sector is still dominated by small family-run stores, but large retail chains are increasingly dominating the sector, because they can exert considerable buying power and pass on the savings in the form of lower prices. Many of these large retail chains also produce their own private labels which compete alongside manufacturer brands. Considerable consolidation of retail stores has changed the retail landscape, transferring power away from wholesalers and into the hands of the large retail chains.
