🠈  Woolworths  🠊

Woolworths

Woolworths was the original five and dime stores. The company developed a chain of discount department stores called Woolco. The main stores failed. The company had acquired Kinney Shoes and started the Foot Locker brand. Woolworth corporate has since changed its name to Foot Locker.

Woolworth's Time Line

• 1879: Frank Winfield Woolworth opened Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store in Utica, New York with a loan from his boss William Moore of Augsbury and Moore in Watertown, NY. He made enough to repay the loan and closed the store
• 1879: Woolworth opened its second store in Lancaster, Pa.
• 1879: Frank's brother Charles joined the firm and opened 5¢ Woolworth Bro's Store in Harrisburg, Pa.
• 1880: The brothers opened 5¢ & 10¢ Woolworth Bro's Store in Scranton, Pa.
• 1884: Fred Morgan Kirby opened Woolworth and Kirby in Wilkes Barre, Pa.
• 188?: Frank's cousin Seymour H. Knox opened Woolworth and Knox in Reading, Pa.
• 1909: F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd opened in in Liverpool, England as a sixpence store.
• 1910: Frank bought up property in a run down section of Lancaster, Pa. He then built a five story building atop a large store.
• 1910: Frank Woolworth commissed the Woolworth Building in New York City at 233 Broadway in the Tribeca. At 792 feet, it became the tallest building in the world when completed in 1913. It held the title to 1930
• 1912: The stores had grown with a syndicate model. They merged to create F. W. Woolworth Company which had 596 stores.
• 1927: Woolworth opened the Retail Company of Germany division.
• 1932: Woolworth added a line of 20-cent items.
• 1935: Woolworth abandonned the fixed price model.
• 1962: Woolworth opened a chain of department stores called Woolco.
• 1963: Woolworth acquired Kinney Shoe Corporation from Brown Shoe which was forced to sell after an anti-monopoly ruling by the U.S. District Court in St. Louis.
• 1967: Woolworths started a shoe chain called Stylco.
• 1968: Woolworths launched a shoe chain called Susie Casuals.
• 1969: The flagship store Briggate in Leeds caught fire. Legal problems from the fire eventually led to the separation of the US and British stores.
• 1974: Woolworth opened a chain called Foot Locker.
• 1979: Woolworth's was recognized at the largest department store in the world.
• 1982: Woolworth announced closure of the Woolco chain which had 336 stores.
• 1982: Paternoster Stores Ltd acquired the British Woolworth stores and renamed itself to Woolworths Group and traded on the London Stock Exchange with symbol: WLW
  • 1989: Woolworths Group rebranded as Kingfisher plc
• 198?, Woolworth's attempted to diversify and opened mall based stores such as Afterthoughts which sold jewelry, Northern Reflections which sold cold-weather outerwear).
and Rx Place and Champs Sports.
• 1988: Woolworths incorporated Woolworth Corporation as a separate firm to hold FootLocker.
• 1988: Woolworth Corporation acquired Champ Sports then changed its name to Woolworth Athletic Group.
• 1994: Walmart acquired 122 Woolco stores in Canada and entered the Canadian market.²
• 1997: Woolworth Athletic Group acquired athletic shoe merchandiser Eastbay
  • 1980: Richard Gering and Art Juedes started a shoe store in Wausau, Wi with $7,000.
  • 1983: Eastbay started a catalog for atheletic shoes.
  • 1990: Eastbay started a clothing line.
  • 1995: Eastbay held an IPO on the NASDAQ.
• 1997: Woolworth changed its name to Venator Group.
• 1997: Venator rebranded as Foot Locker, Inc..
• 1998: The Retail Company of Germany division spun off as Deutsche Woolworth GmbH & Company OHG.
  • 2003: Deutsche Woolworths had 340 outlets and 16,000 employees
  • 2010: The Tengelmann Group bought 162 of the chain's store.

Woolworths Stupendous Bargain Basement

In 1924 a group of Australian merchants opened a discount store. As a dare, they named it Woolworths Stupendous Bargain Basement despite the fact that they had no relation with FK Woolworths. The company grew into one of the largest merchants in Australia. Woolworths Australia is one of Australia's largest supermarket chains.

Woolworths Holdings Limited - South Africa

In 1931, Max Sonnenberg started a chain of stores using the name Woolworths in Cape Town. This company trades on the JSE with the symbol WHL.

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References:

1. Wikipedia - FW Woolworths (Drawn 11/24/2021)
2. Newswire - Walmart Celebrates 25 Years in Canada (Drawn 11/24/2021)

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