Target Australia
Target Australia is a mid-price department store chain owned by Wesfarmers. It is Australia's largest department store chain by store number, operating 294 stores throughout the country. Products it sells include branded clothing, homewares, electronics and consumer electronics; the company's national support office is located in Williams Landing. In 1926, George Lindsay and Alex McKenzie opened their first store in Geelong selling dress fabrics and furnishings. Lindsay had begun his retail empire five years earlier, running a store in Ouyen, but moved to Geelong to increase the opportunity for growth; the company progressively established stores throughout Victoria, running with a policy of selling quality goods at half the normal rate of profit. In 1968, Myer Emporium purchased the chain of 16 stores and renamed the company Lindsay's Target, with an aim to expand the business. With the stores rebranded as Target, it established itself throughout Australia, within 3 years had stores in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.
Despite the similar logo and type of outlets, Target carried no corporate connection to US department store Target. In March 1973, "Lindsay's" was dropped from the company name when the business was renamed Target Australia Pty Ltd. By 1982, Myer was operating 27 stores under the Target brand, but sold 22 of these with 14 going to GJ Coles & Coy Ltd. In August 1985, Myer Emporium Ltd and GJ Coles & Coy Ltd merged to become Coles Myer Limited. In 1996, Coles Myer merged the Target and Fosseys brands, their first speciality store Baby Target was established. In 1998, their second speciality store, Target Home opened. Fosseys stores were renamed Target Country, becoming the third speciality store under the Target name. In 2001, Target announced its first loss, to the sum of $43m. New senior management was soon put in place, with Target repositioning itself from a store directly competing with Coles Myer stablemate Kmart and Woolworths Limited's Big W, to a more stylish, up-market, but still value-for-money, alternative to speciality stores.
Store fittings and layouts were altered to reflect this change. In 2006 Target appointed Launa Inman as managing director, named Telstra Business Women of the Year in 2003, a result of her achievements as an apparel retail buyer for the company, her position saw Target's $32 million loss at the end of 2000 turn into a $68 million profit 18 months later. Prior to its November 2007 takeover of Coles Group, Wesfarmers stated in August 2007 that it would consider converting some Kmart stores to the Target brand. In May 2009, Target stopped providing free plastic bags for its customers, but in 2013 reversed this decision. In November 2011, Dene Rogers, the former chief executive of North American retailer Sears Canada, replaced Inman as Target's managing director, but by April 2013 Rogers had been replaced by former chief operations director at Coles Stuart Machin. In February 2016, Wesfarmers restructured Target and Kmart under a single'Department Stores' division, headed by Kmart managing director Guy Russo.
An accounting scandal that created $21 million in fraudulent profits was reported on 11 April 2016. Although it is not believed CEO Stuart Machin orchestrated or ordered the accounting irregularities, he took the blame for the scandal and departed Target. In June 2016 at a Wesfarmers annual strategy briefing Guy Russo announced that Target would be exiting toy sales, pet care and luggage. Target announced in April 2016 it would relocate its Geelong head office to Melbourne, resulting in an unspecified number of redundancies. Following the April 2016 announcement, Wesfarmers confirmed in December that Target would relocate to Williams Landing in late 2018. In June 2017, Wesfarmers announced that Target and Kmart would be merging some of their back office operations including procurement; some Target stores would be converted to Kmart stores while other Target and Target Country stores would be closed. In June 2017, Wesfarmers announced that some Target stores would be converted to Kmart stores while other Target and Target Country stores would be closed.
So far, only a few stores have closed. Here is a list of Target stores that have closed down and been converted to Kmart stores: Victoria Doncaster East Broadmeadows Western Australia Victoria Park Urban by Target Urban by Target was a format tried by Target in South Yarra, Victoria at The Jam Factory; this format was smaller than the traditional target stores. It was closed down, it had an iconic black logo, rather than the red logo. This format was discontinued recently. Target Outlet Target Outlet was a format tried by Target at the Target in Dandenong, Victoria at Dandenong Plaza; the format was one off and was discontinued around 2014. Baby TargetIn 1996, Target introduced Baby Target as a standalone store format for baby products; the concept had limited success and was closed down soon after. Target Home Another format tried by Target was the homewares-themed store Target Home, but was discontinued. Target Home stores have since been phased out to become larger Target stores, still stock a larger range of homewares in a number of locations in Australia and New Zealand including Joondalup and Carousel in WA, Edwardstown in SA, Highpoint and Greensborough in VIC, Westfield Warringah Mall in NSW and Tauranga, North Island.
Target Country Fosseys was established in 1926 at George Street, Sydney by Alfred Bristow Fossey and grew to 148 stores throughout Australia, with an
Dollarama
Dollarama Inc. is a Canadian dollar store retail chain headquartered in Montreal. Since 2009, it has been Canada's largest retailer of items for four dollars or less. Dollarama has a presence in every province of Canada; the first all-dollar store was founded in Montreal in 1910 by Salim Rassy, a Lebanese immigrant, whose name became Rossy. His son George took over the retailer in 1937 and led the company until his death in 1973 when his grandson Larry Rossy assumed leadership of it when it had 20 stores; the retail chain grew to 44 stores by 1992 which until operated under the name Rossy S Inc. discount store chain, when Larry opened the first Dollarama at the shopping centre "Les promenades du St-Laurent" in Matane. By the late 1990s, Dollarama had become by far the primary source of revenue for the Rossy family; as such, the Rossy S division was closed, with all of its stores either closed or converted into Dollarama stores. After converting all the locations to the dollar store concept, Rossy continued to open new stores reaching 1,000 stores in 2015.
In November 2004, 80 percent of the chain was sold for $850 million US, to a private equity fund, Bain Capital, of Boston, Massachusetts. In 2013, Dollarama was planning to expand its market to Latin America, made an eight-year agreement to share its business expertise and provide sourcing services to Dollar City, a Salvadoran chain of dollar stores in Central America and ColombiaIn 2016, Dollarama established a partnership with the Marco G. R. Enterprise, resulting in the sponsorship of the first edition of the Formula Windsor Championship. In 2018, Dollarama recalled over 550,000 children's toys due to dangerous levels of phthalates. Many items are priced at $1.00 or less, almost all items were priced as such. In early 2009 Dollarama began to introduce items priced up to $2.00. Due to the positive response from consumers to the multi-price point strategy, the stores subsequently introduced items at $2.50 and $3.00 in August 2012. They again increased price points to include $3.50 and $4.00 items in August 2016.
This price level increase allowed the chain to acquire products from a greater variety of sources, including closeout sales. Adjustments may happen to all prices. Payment in Dollarama stores was once by cash only, until Interac debit cards were added as a payment option beginning in 2008. Gift cards began to be offered in 2011; as of 2015, all Dollarama stores additionally support contactless Interac Flash payments. In March 2017, Dollarama announced that credit cards would be offered as a payment option at all stores by the end of summer 2018. Customers will be able to pay with Visa and American Express, following a successful pilot program. Many of the Dollarama stores are located where there once were BiWay stores, a defunct Canadian discount retail chain, which closed after a series of dubious financial transactions involving a new owner of the parent operation. Dollarama launched its online store on January 21, 2019 where it will sell many of its products in bulk. Only 1000 of the 4000 products offered in Dollarama stores will be sold online, namely items that are purchased in bulk.
Most large scale modern Dollar stores sourced products from their inception from China beginning in the mid 1990's when they appeared on the retail landscape. This was the same time when Chinese companies entered the market and were allowed to manufacture for Western countries. Dollarama started branding sourced products starting in the early early 2000s. One such brand was Studio, a name they still use for stationary products, another was Plastico a name they created for plastic kitchen containers. For a long period of time the public did not know that these were created brands by Dollarama, most would only of known if they scrutinized the labels. What Dollarama was doing was noting new, as private labels were created as a far back as the late 1970's in Canada by Loblaws with their No Frills products, most grocery stores followed, it only became evident what products are sourced and branded by Dollarama, when they started having the prices directly on the label as part of the graphic design.
An large large percentage of Dollarama products are sourced. In mid-2009 it rolled out its own store brand, "D". Unlike small dollar/discount stores, it sources most of its products directly from manufacturers, rather than from local unknown distributors. A Buck or Two Dollar Tree Great Canadian Dollar Store Your Dollar Store with More Official website CNW: Dollarama, press releases
Toys "R" Us
Toys "R" Us is an international toy, video game, baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids, Inc. and various others. It was founded in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Wayne, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. Founded by Charles Lazarus in its modern iteration in June 1957, Toys "R" Us traced its origins to Lazarus's children's furniture store, which he started in 1948, he added toys to his offering, shifted his focus. The company had been in the toy business for more than 65 years and operated around 800 stores in the United States and around 800 outside the US, although these numbers have decreased with time. Toys "R" Us expanded as a chain, becoming predominant in its niche field of toy retail, branched out into baby supplies and children's clothing. At its peak, Toys "R" Us was considered a classic example of a category killer. With the rise of mass merchants, as well as online retailers such as Amazon.com, Toys "R" Us began to lose its share of the toy market. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 18, 2017, its British operations entered administration in February 2018.
In March 2018, the company announced that it would close all of its U. S. and British stores. The British locations closed in April and the U. S. locations in June. The Australian wing of Toys "R" Us entered voluntary administration on May 22 and closed all of its stores on August 5, 2018. Operations in other international markets such as Asia and Africa were less affected, but chains in Canada, parts of Europe and Asia were sold to third-parties; the company continues to operate as the licensor of the chain's international operations, but its lenders announced in October 2018 that it planned to re-launch the U. S. Toys "R" Us retail business in the future; the lenders partnered with Kroger to add "Geoffrey's Toy Box" pop-up departments to selected locations in order to give Toys "R" Us a presence during the holiday shopping season. On February 11, 2019, the company emerged from bankruptcy as Tru Kids. In April 1948, Charles P. Lazarus founded a baby-furniture retailer Children's Supermart in Washington, D.
C. during the post-war baby boom. Lazarus, who served in the Army during World War II, opened the first store at 2461 18th St. NW, he began receiving requests from customers for baby toys. After adding baby toys, he got requests for toys for older children, it was acquired in 1966 by Interstate Department Stores, Inc. owner of the White Front, Topps Chains and Children's Bargain Town USA. The focus of the store changed in June 1957, the first Toys "R" Us, dedicated to toys rather than furniture, was opened by Lazarus in Rockville, Maryland. Lazarus designed and stylized the Toys "R" Us logo, which featured a backwards "R" to give the impression that a child wrote it; the original Toys "R" Us store design from 1969 to 1989 consisted of vertical rainbow stripes and a brown roof with a front entrance and side exit. To improve the company, the board of directors installed John Eyler in May 2000. Eyler launched an expensive plan to remodel and re-launch the chain. Blaming market pressures, Toys "R" Us considered splitting its toy and baby businesses.
On March 17, 2005, a consortium of Bain Capital Partners LLC, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Vornado Realty Trust announced a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of the company. Public stock closed for the last time on July 21, 2005 at $26.74—a 63% increase since when it first announced that the company was put up for sale. Toys "R" Us became a owned entity after the buyout; the company still files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as required by its debt agreements. On August 23, 2011, Toys "R" Us announced it would begin to open combined Toys "R" Us/Babies "R" Us stores, with 21 new stores using the concept, 23 remodeled into the concept; the new locations were being built in Alabama, Georgia, New Jersey, Texas. In December 2013, eight days before Christmas, Toys "R" Us announced their stores in the United States would stay open for 87 hours straight; the flagship store of the retailer in Times Square was open for 24 hours a day from December 1 to 24, to cater to tourists. The announcement came after snow and rain caused a nearly 9 percent year-over-year decline in U.
S. store foot traffic. This move pushed the retailer to hire an additional 45,000 seasonal workers to cater to the demand of the extended store hours. Since the toy business is seasonal, more than 40% of the company's sales come in during the fourth quarter of the year. In 2014, Toys "R" Us announced its "TRU Transformation" strategy, which concentrated on efforts to fix foundational issues affecting future growth, including making stores less cluttered, improving the customer experience, clearer pricing strategies and promotions, tighter integration of its retail and online businesses. In 2015, the company launched the first of a new concept store called the "Toy Lab" in Freehold, New Jersey; the new layout provided more space for interactive exhibits and areas to play with new toys before purchase. This concept has since been expanded to stores in California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. On September 18, 2017, Toys "R" Us, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating the move would give it flexibility to deal with $5 billion in long-term debt, borrow $2 billion so it can pay suppliers for the upcoming holiday season and invest in improving current operations.
The company has not had an annual profit since 2013. It reported a net loss of US$164 million in the quarter ended
Walmart
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969, it owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses. As of January 31, 2019, Walmart has 11,348 stores and clubs in 27 countries, operating under 55 different names; the company operates under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada, as Walmart de México y Centroamérica in Mexico and Central America, as Asda in the United Kingdom, as the Seiyu Group in Japan, as Best Price in India. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Chile and South Africa. Since August 2018, Walmart only holds a minority stake in Walmart Brasil, with 20% of the company's shares, private equity firm Advent International holding 80% ownership of the company. Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue—over US$500 billion, according to Fortune Global 500 list in 2018—as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees.
It is a publicly traded family-owned business. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through their holding company, Walton Enterprises, through their individual holdings. Walmart was the largest U. S. grocery retailer in 2019, 65 percent of Walmart's US$510.329 billion sales came from U. S. operations. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. By 1988, Walmart was the most profitable retailer in the U. S. and by October 1989, it had become the largest in terms of revenue. Geographically limited to the South and lower Midwest, by the early 1990s, the company had stores from coast to coast: Sam's Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989 and the first California outlet opened in Lancaster in July 1990. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania opened in October 1990: the first main store in the Northeast. Walmart's investments outside North America have seen mixed results: its operations and subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, South America, China are successful, whereas its ventures in Germany and South Korea failed.
In 1945, businessman and former J. C. Penney employee Sam Walton bought a branch of the Ben Franklin stores from the Butler Brothers, his primary focus was selling products at low prices to get higher-volume sales at a lower profit margin, portraying it as a crusade for the consumer. He experienced setbacks because the lease price and branch purchase were unusually high, but he was able to find lower-cost suppliers than those used by other stores and was able to undercut his competitors on pricing. Sales increased 45% in his first year of ownership to US$105,000 in revenue, which increased to $140,000 the next year and $175,000 the year after that. Within the fifth year, the store was generating $250,000 in revenue; when the lease for the location expired, Walton was unable to reach an agreement for renewal, so he opened up a new store at 105 N. Main Street in Bentonville, naming it "Walton's Five and Dime"; that store is now the Walmart Museum. On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Walmart Discount City store at 719 W. Walnut Street in Rogers, Arkansas.
The building is now occupied by a hardware store and an antique mall, while the company's "Store #1" has since relocated to a larger discount store and now expanded to a Supercenter several blocks west at 2110 W. Walnut Street. Within its first five years, the company expanded to 24 stores across Arkansas and reached US$12.6 million in sales. In 1968, it opened its first stores outside Arkansas, in Sikeston and Claremore, Oklahoma; the company was incorporated as Wal-Mart, Inc. on October 31, 1969, changed its name to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in 1970. The same year, the company opened a home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas, it had 38 stores operating with 1,500 sales of $44.2 million. It began trading stock as a publicly held company on October 1, 1970, was soon listed on the New York Stock Exchange; the first stock split occurred in May 1971 at a price of $47 per share. By this time, Walmart was operating in five states: Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma; as the company moved into Texas in 1975, there were 125 stores with 7,500 employees and total sales of $340.3 million.
In the 1980s, Walmart continued to grow and by the company's 25th anniversary in 1987, there were 1,198 stores with sales of $15.9 billion and 200,000 associates. This year marked the completion of the company's satellite network, a $24 million investment linking all operating units with the Bentonville office via two-way voice and data transmission and one-way video communication. At the time, the company was the largest private satellite network, allowing the corporate office to track inventory and sales and to communicate to stores. In 1988, Walton was replaced by David Glass. Walton remained as Chairman of the Board. With the contribution of its superstores, the company surpassed Toys "R" Us in toy sales in 1998. While it was the third-largest retailer in the United States, Walmart was more profitable than rivals Kmart and Sears by the late 1980s. By 1990, it became the largest U. S. retailer by revenue. Prior to the summer of 1990, Walmart had no presence on the West Coast or in the Northeast, but in July and October that year, it opened its first stores in California and Pennsylvania, respectively.
By the mid-1990s, it was far and away the most powerful retailer in the U. S. and expanded into Mexico in 1991 and Canada in 1994
Vaughan Mills
Vaughan Mills is a regional outlet mall located at the southeast corner of Highway 400 and Rutherford Road, in Vaughan, just south of Canada's Wonderland. It is one of the largest enclosed shopping centres in Canada, the largest shopping mall in York Region with 1.3 million square feet of retail space. The complex has over 200 retail stores and entertainment outlets; the mall is well served by public transport, with York Region Transit's Vaughan Mills bus terminal adjacent to its eastern entrance, with regular service to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre station on the Toronto Transit Commission's subway network. The shopping centre was designed and built by Ivanhoé Cambridge and the Mills Corporation, the latter of which owns a portfolio of malls across the United States. JPRA served as the design architect for the centre, with Bregman + Hamann Architects as the project architect. Like its American counterparts, Vaughan Mills incorporates a "race track" layout to maximize the exposure of the mall tenants.
When Vaughan Mills was conceived in fall 1999, it was meant to be a larger complex at 1.4 million square feet, with up to 18 anchor retailers and a combined 245 stores and services. The shopping centre was intended to be a stepping stone for American retailers wanting to enter the Canadian market, however Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World was the only U. S. retailer to make its exclusive launch there, while other anticipated retailers such as Bed and Beyond and Burlington Coat Factory ending up never coming to Vaughan Mills. In September 1999, Bed Bath & Beyond and Sun & Ski Sports were among the six American retailers that were announced as Vaughan Mills' first anchor tenants. An ESPN X Games Skatepark was planned as the main entertainment venue site; the mall opened on November 4, 2004, was the first regional enclosed shopping complex to be opened in the Greater Toronto Area since the Erin Mills Town Centre in 1990 as well as the first in the GTA built in the 21st century. The mall had its two-millionth visitor less than two months after its opening.
Vaughan Mills receives over 13.5 million patrons per year. In August 2006, the Mills Corporation sold its stake in Vaughan Mills to partner Ivanhoé Cambridge. In January 2013, plans were announced to add 150,000 square feet and 50 new stores to the mall, which opened in late 2014. On October 23, 2014, the expansion of the mall with 50 new stores opened. On March 17, 2016, Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th opened a 32,000 square feet store in the mall; the mall added the first Legoland Discovery Centre in Canada. In 2018, Japanese retailer Uniqlo announced an expansion to open four new locations in malls, including that of Vaughan Mills, which opened on September 28, 2018, in the former HR2 location. Ivanhoé Cambridge stated in 2011 that their strategic plan was to have four sister malls in Canada, with Vaughan Mills as the first, additional locations to be located near Calgary and Montreal. CrossIron Mills, located outside of Calgary, opened on August 19, 2009, it has a number including Bass Pro Shops.
The CrossIron Mills location opened in the spring of 2009, several months ahead of the main mall. The construction and opening of the mall has paralleled Vaughan Mills to a degree, as it, has occurred during an economic recession. Tsawwassen Mills, located in Delta, British Columbia, at Highway 17 and 52nd Street on Tsawwassen First Nation Lands south of Vancouver. Construction began in January 2014 and the mall opened on October 5, 2016. Tsawwassen Mills is designed in a similar format to its sister malls and includes 111,500 square metres of retail. Plans call for 16 anchor retailers, including the first Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World location in British Columbia announced as the first anchor tenant. Ivanhoé Cambridge had planned to build what would have been called Laval Mills in Laval, Quebec near Montreal, at the intersection of Quebec Autoroute 440 and Quebec Autoroute 25. However, after three years of planning and analysis, these plans were abandoned in May 2011 citing that their criteria of feasibility and profitability were not met because environmental issues as construction would have disrupted a number of wetlands on or directly connection to the project.
At the time the project was cancelled Ivanhoé Cambridge stated they would continue plans for a Mills mall to be built in the Montreal region. Other outlet malls in the Greater Toronto area: Toronto Premium Outlets Dixie Outlet Mall
