WH Smith PLC, trading as WHSmith, is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
Carrefour Group, S.A., is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. It operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and convenience stores, which, as of December 2021, comprised 13,894 stores in over 30 countries, making it the seventh-largest retailer in the world by revenue.
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.
Dixons Retail plc was one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Europe, which merged with Carphone Warehouse in 2014 to create Dixons Carphone. In the United Kingdom, the company operated Currys, Currys Digital, PC World, Dixons Travel and its service brand Knowhow.
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 consists of The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery and Noel Leeming.
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.
A big-box store, a hyperstore, a supercenter, a superstore, or a megastore 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.
SOCKSHOP is a British-based specialist retailer of socks and hosiery. Founded in 1983 by Sophie Mirman and Richard P. Ross, SOCKSHOP became part of the Ruia Group in 2006, and is now based mainly online, with stores in the Manchester Arndale and The Lowry Outlet, as well as concessions across the United Kingdom.
In the Republic of Ireland, the retail sector provides one of the largest sources of employment in the economy, representing over 12% of the workforce. As of 2017, approximately 40,000 wholesale and retail businesses employed almost 280,000 people in Ireland, with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment reporting that 90% of these businesses were Irish-owned.
First Quench Retailing was the largest independent off-licence retail chain in the UK, with around 3,500 shops operating under several retail brands, though all have now been closed. At the time of First Quench's closure, these included the Threshers, Haddows, The Local and Wine Rack chains.
Home Bargains is a British variety store chain founded in 1976 by Tom Morris in Liverpool, England, as Home and Bargain. It is the trading name of TJ Morris Ltd.
Poundland is a British variety store chain founded in 1990. It once sold most items at the single price of £1, including clearance items and proprietary brands. The first pilot store opened in December 1990 following numerous rejections by landlords who had reservations about allowing a single-price store to operate, fearing it could adversely affect the local competition. An estimated 7 million customers shopped in Poundland every week in 2016, many being female shoppers in the C1, C2, D and E categories. Following a drop in share price of over 50%, Poundland was acquired in August 2016 by Steinhoff International for £610 million.
Shoprite Limited was a community food store chain in the Isle of Man. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Isle of Man Enterprises plc, until Tesco announced its purchase of the business on 9 October 2023.
B. S. Nagesh is an Indian businessman and the founder of the Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India (TRRAIN). He is the chairman of the department store chain Shoppers Stop, having been with the company since its inception in 1991. He has been the guiding force since the opening of the first store in Andheri, Mumbai, and the chain now has 74 stores in 35 cities across India.
Smiggle is an Australian-based retail store chain that sells stationery and related accessories. It was founded in Melbourne by Stephen Meurs and Peter Pausewang in 2003 and acquired by the Just Group in July 2007. As of February 2016, the chain has stores located across Australia (135), New Zealand (23), Singapore (17), United Kingdom (100), Hong Kong (14), Malaysia (22) and the Republic of Ireland (3). Smiggle is renowned for its use of vibrant bold colours and quirky graphics on most of its branded products.
The James Pascoe Ltd Group of Companies is a privately owned New Zealand retail group with holdings across New Zealand and Australia. JPG owns and operates chains Pascoes the Jewellers, Stewart Dawsons and Goldmark ; department store Farmers ; homeware retailer Stevens; and bookshop Whitcoulls in New Zealand. The group's three Australian businesses are jewellers Prouds the Jewellers, Angus & Coote and Goldmark, with over 460 stores across Australia as of 2012. Goldmark is the only brand operating in both countries.
Edison Brothers Stores, Inc., was a retail conglomerate based in St. Louis, Missouri. It operated numerous retail chains mainly located in shopping malls, mostly in the fields of shoes, clothing and entertainment, with Bakers Shoes as its flagship chain. The company was liquidated in 1999, though some of the chains it operated continued under different owners.
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.
