W.S. Badcock Corporation sells furniture for every room in the house through more than 300 Badcock Home Furnishing Centers and Badcock &more stores in about 10 southeastern states as well as online. Badcock stores also carry appliances, lawn equipment, electronics, mattresses, floor coverings and rugs, bedding, lighting, wall art, and other decorative accessories. Founded in 1904 as a general mercantile store by Henry S. Badcock, the company is in its fourth generation of family management.

Founded in 1963, Leslie's is majority owned by affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners. Leslie's Poolmart is the big fish of pool product retailers. The company sells pool and spa chemicals, cleaning and testing equipment, pumps, covers, and recreational items through some 620 stores in some 35 states, mostly in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. The company also sells its products through catalogs and its website. Leslie's makes chlorine tablets and repackages other chemicals to be sold under the Leslie name as well. Pool chemicals, major equipment, and parts account for a majority of the company's sales.

It was founded in 1913 by W.S. Cowling, Sr. Dixieline ProBuild (formerly Dixieline Lumber & Home Centers) operates in the deep south of California. The company, owned by Pro-Build Holdings, serves do-it-yourselfers, contractors, and remodelers through about a dozen lumberyard-home centers in the San Diego area. Each location is stocked with 35,000 SKUs, a lumber dock, and in-store door and window showrooms as well as kitchen and bath design centers. It also operates a facility for making trusses, milling, and remanufacturing. The business brings lumber to the West Coast through a dock facility in Oregon, and it also distributes structural lumber and framing and sheathing materials.

Carrefour Italia sources more than 90% of its agricultural food products locally and sells its own brands of food, including the Terre D'Italia and ScelgoBio labels.Europe's leading retailer Carrefour knows that to live la dolce vita, you've got to buy lots of stuff. Its operations in Italy are carried out by Carrefour Italia, one of the country's biggest sellers of food and general merchandise, along with Conad and Coop Italia. Carrefour owns about 495 stores in Italy, which operate under the names Carrefour (about 65 hypermarkets), GS (about 235 supermarkets), DìperDì (some 175 convenience stores), and DocksMarket and GrossIper (about 15 cash-and-carry stores), and franchises more than a thousand others.

Kowalski's Markets is struggling to expand while it straps on its leather boxing mitts. The company, which operates about 10 supermarkets in the St. Paul and Minneapolis area of Minnesota, wants to be a heavyweight contender among high-end grocery stores there. However, stiff competition from other grocery chains and discounters have limited Kowalski's share of the Twin Cities market to just under 2%: an eighth-place ranking in the market. Indeed competition led the grocer to close a one-year-old store several years ago. Founded by husband and wife team James and Mary Anne Kowalski as a single supermarket in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1983, the regional grocery chain is still owned and run by the Kowalski family.

Nordstrom, Inc., a fashion specialty retailer, offers apparel, shoes, cosmetics, and accessories for women, men, and children in the United States. Nordstrom company offers a selection of brand name and private label merchandise. It sells its products through various channels, including ‘Nordstrom’ full-line stores, ‘Nordstrom Rack’ off-price stores, ‘Last Chance’ clearance stores, and ‘Jeffrey’ boutiques; and through catalog and the Internet. Nordstrom, Inc. also provides a private label card, two Nordstrom VISA credit cards, and a debit card for Nordstrom purchases. Its credit and debit cards feature a shopping-based loyalty program. Nordstrom company also designs and contracts to manufacture private label merchandise sold in its retail stores. As of March 19, 2010, it had 187 retail stores located in 28 states. Nordstrom, Inc. was founded in 1901 and is based in Seattle, Washington.

Lawrence Robert McCoy incorporated the company in 1922. Today, it is employee-owned. If only his name was Robert Lawrence, the company could have called itself the "RL McCoy". Lawrence R. McCoy & Co. (LR McCoy) is a wholesale distributor of lumber products, fencing materials, landscaping supplies, and wood flooring to contractors, home centers, retail outlets, and industrial clients in the Northeastern US and Canada. Customers can access accounts online through the My LR McCoy service. The Davenport Peters Company division of the company wholesales lumber.

Martin McColl is among the leading operators of newsstands and convenience stores in Great Britain. The company has more than 900 newsstands, 300 convenience stores, and 100 high street shops in England, Scotland and Wales. Its newsstands operate under the Martin's banner while its convenience stores operate under the McColl's banner. About 400 stores have post offices, making it the UK's leading owner of regional substations. Martin McColl, originally named TM Retail, was formed in 1998. Following a management-led buyout in 2005, the company changed its name and its business strategy. Its executive team owns about 80% of the company.

E-machitown is happy to lend its bank of servers and Web-hosting expertise to those who are willing to shell out a little Yen. The company, owned by Japan's largest reseller of mobile phones and formerly named Crayfish, provides Web-hosting services in Japan. As part of its business, e-machitown offers an e-mail service called DESKWIN, resells Internet advertising space, and develops custom software products. Since early 2009, e-machitown has been a 15% owner in a Tokyo joint venture named Alibaba Japan that sells products online. Telecommunications services provider Hikari Tsushin, which specializes in cell phone and Internet services and distribution among other things, owns 82% of e-machitown.

Founded by Rowland Schaefer and later run by his daughters, Bonnie and Marla Schaefer, Claire's Stores was sold to an affiliate of the New York-based private equity firm Apollo Management for about $3 billion in 2007. If the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys, for young women and girls, it may be the price of their accessories. For thrifty, fashion-conscious females ages 3 to 27, Claire's Stores is the queen of costume jewelry, handbags, and hair bows. The company operates nearly 3,000 boutiques, primarily in malls, under the Claire's and Icing banners. The chain is present in all 50 US states, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Canada, as well as about 10 European countries.

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