What is CHAIN STORE? What does CHAIN STORE mean? CHAIN STORE meaning, definition & explanation

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What is CHAIN STORE? What does CHAIN STORE mean? CHAIN STORE meaning - CHAIN STORE definition - CHAIN STORE explanation.

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Source: Wikipedia.org article, adapted under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ license.

Chain store(s) or retail chain(s) are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. In retail, dining, and many service categories, chain businesses have come to dominate the market in many parts of the world. A franchise retail establishment is one form of chain store. In 2004, the world’s largest retail chain, Wal-Mart, became the world’s largest corporation based on gross sales.

In 1792, Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna established W.H. Smith as a news vending business in London that would become a national concern in the mid-19th century under the management of their grandson William Henry Smith. The firm took advantage of the railway boom by opening news-stands at railway stations beginning in 1848. The firm, now called WHSmith, had more than 1,400 locations as of 2017.

In the U.S., chain stores began with the founding of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) in 1859. Initially the small chain sold tea and coffee in stores located in New York City and operated a national mail order business. The firm grew to 70 stores by 1878 when George Huntington Hartford turned A&P into the country’s first grocery chain. In 1900, it operated almost 200 stores.

Isidore, Benjamin and Modeste Dewachter originated the idea of the chain department store in Belgium when they incorporated Dewachter frères (Dewachter Brothers) on January 1, 1875, three years before A&P began offering more than coffee and tea. The brothers offered ready-to-wear clothing for men and children and specialty clothing such as riding apparel and beachwear. Isidore owned 51% of the company, while his brothers split the remaining 49%. They started with four locations: the tiny crossroads village of Leuze, La Louvière and two at Mons. Under Isidore’s (and later his son Louis’) leadership, Maison Dewachter (House of Dewachter) would become one of the most recognized names in Belgium and France with stores in 20 cities and towns. Some cities had multiple stores, such as Bordeaux, France. Louis Dewachter also became an internationally known landscape artist, painting under the pseudonym Louis Dewis.

By the early 1920s, the U.S. boasted three national chains: A&P, Woolworth’s, and United Cigar Stores. By the 1930s, chain stores had come of age, and stopped increasing their total market share. Court decisions against the chains’ price-cutting appeared as early as 1906, and laws against chain stores began in the 1920s, along with legal countermeasures by chain-store groups.

A restaurant chain is a set of related restaurants in many different locations that are either under shared corporate ownership (e.g., McDonald’s in the U.S.) or franchising agreements. Typically, the restaurants within a chain are built to a standard format through architectural prototype development and offer a standard menu and/or services.

Fast food restaurants are the most common, but sit-down restaurant chains (such as Timber Lodge Steakhouse, Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback Steakhouse, T.G.I. Friday’s, Legal Sea Foods, Ruby Tuesday and Olive Garden) also exist. Restaurant chains are often found near highways, shopping malls and tourist areas.

The displacement of independent businesses by chains has sparked increased collaboration among independent businesses and communities to prevent chain proliferation. These efforts include community-based organizing through Independent Business Alliances (in the U.S. and Canada) and "buy local" campaigns. In the U.S., trade organizations such as the American Booksellers Association and American Specialty Toy Retailers do national promotion and advocacy. NGOs like the New Rules Project and New Economics Foundation provide research and tools for pro-independent business education and policy while the American Independent Business Alliance provides direct assistance for community-level organizing.

A variety of towns and cities in the United States whose residents wish to retain their distinctive character—such as San Francisco; Provincetown, Massachusetts and other Cape Cod villages; Bristol, RI; McCall, Idaho; Port Townsend, Washington; Ogunquit, Maine; and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California—closely regulate, even exclude, chain stores. They don’t exclude the chain itself, only the standardized formula the chain uses. For example, there could often be a restaurant owned by McDonald’s that sells hamburgers, but not the formula franchise operation with the golden arches and standardized menu, uniforms, and procedures.