GNC is owned by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Board Plan, its affiliate Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund II, and management. GNC filed to go public in September 2010.What's good for the customer is good for GNC Acquisition Corporation (formerly General Nutrition Centers). GNC operates the world's leading nutritional-supplements retail chain devoted solely to items such as vitamins and dietary products. The company also makes Rite Aid private-label products. It sells its products online, as well, through a partnership with drugstore.com. GNC has 2,800 company-owned retail stores in the US and Canada; 1,900 store-within-a-store sites in Rite Aid's drugstores; and 2,220 franchised stores in 47 countries.

Stamps.com hopes its customers keep putting letters in the mail. Its PC Postage service lets registered users who have downloaded Stamps.com software buy stamps online and print the postage directly onto envelopes and labels. Customers can order US Postal Service options, such as registered mail, certified mail, and delivery confirmation, as well as print custom stamps using virtually any image through its PhotoStamps.com Web site. Stamps.com charges a monthly fee for its service, which is aimed at consumers, home offices, and small businesses. In addition, customers can buy mailing labels, scales, and dedicated postage printers from Stamps.com. Postage fees are sent directly to the US Postal Service.

Tastefully Simple boasts more than 28,000 sales representatives in all 50 US states, and it buys its products from specialty food vendors. Jill Blashack Strahan and Joani Nielson founded the company in 1995. CEO Blashack Strahan owns about 70% of Tastefully Simple.Taste buds get the Tupperware treatment at Tastefully Simple. The company promotes its line of gourmet soups, dips, desserts, and convenience foods through in-home parties where attendees can taste products among friends and family prior to purchasing them. Its standard food items range in price from about $5 for beer bread mix to more than $40 for large gift packs. Many items are ready-to-eat, while others require only one or two extra ingredients.

Haggen showers shoppers in the Pacific Northwest with salmon, coffee, and other essentials. The area's largest independent grocer, Haggen operates 30-plus combination supermarkets throughout Washington and Oregon. Most upscale Haggen Food & Pharmacy stores feature specialty departments, while the TOP Food & Drug outlets emphasize savings; however, both may offer such amenities as Starbucks coffee shops, Blockbuster video outlets, or child-care centers. To keep up with the Joneses of supermarket fame and fortune, Haggen partnered with ShopEaze.com (an e-commerce service provider), which failed, leaving Haggen without an online store. Brothers and co-chairmen Don and Rick Haggen own the chain.

Some people may not like to eat Atomic Spears, but these guys think it is all A Matter of Taste. The company sells specialty food products, such as Atomic Spears (pickles) and Atomic Shrooms (mushrooms), Glow Babies (pickled carrots), P.B. Loco (flavored peanut butter), and cheddar beer soup. A Matter of Taste also peddles quilts and assorted commemorative figurines. While A Matter of Taste Inc. sells its products from its Web site, it also operates a single retail store in Washington.

Earth Fare stores offer about 26,000 natural and organic products, house cafes and juice bars, sell vitamins and herbs, and offer deli service and cooking classes. Earth Fare was founded in 1975 by Roger Derrough who owns it along with other investors.Shoppers looking to fill their carts with products containing high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, artificial flavors, and synthetic growth hormones need not shop at Earth Fare. The regional organic and natural foods supermarket chain operates some 20 stores in Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee. Its stores are smaller than those of its conventional supermarket competitors and national natural foods chains like Whole Foods Market.

Max Mara Fashion Group is taking leading-edge apparel design to the max. Max Mara Fashion Group S.r.l. clothes some of the finest women in the world (including ESPN Monday Night Football's female reporters). It touts more than 20 labels, including the flagship Max Mara (high-end contemporary career, bridal, and sportswear); Marina Rinaldi (plus-sized fashions); and iBlues, Marella, and Penny Black (lower-priced lines). One of Italy's largest fashion firms, Max Mara Fashion Group S.r.l. company operates more than 2,300 boutiques in 90 countries worldwide, and it sells through such retailers as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Barneys. Started in the 1950s, Max Mara is owned and run by the family of founder Achille Maramotti, who died in 2005.

Debenhams has 153 stores across the UK and Ireland and a fully transactional website, reflecting Debenhams' commitment to offering our customers greater value, a wider choice and excellent service across every area in which we trade.Debenhams has sat front-row to fashion for nearly two centuries. The stalwart retailer runs about 155 mid-market department stores in the UK and Ireland that sell women's, men's, and children's apparel; cosmetics; and housewares under the Debenhams and Desire by Debenhams banners.

Shop Direct Home Shopping is one of the UK's largest shop-at-home retailers. Doing business under the Shop Direct Group name, the company sells brand-name apparel, appliances, electronics, jewelry, toys, and more through its websites and catalogs (more than 9 million distributed annually). Its home-shopping operations include about 10 retail brands, including Littlewoods, Woolworths, Great Universal, and Marshall Ward. Shop Direct also peddles overstock merchandise through about 30 Littlewoods Clearance outlets (previously Bargain Crazy). Formerly named Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping, the firm is owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay.

DOTS has plans for continued national expansion, including California eventually. Ultimately, DOTS hopes to reach 1,000 stores nationwide. DOTS operates more than 400 value-priced women's clothing and accessory stores in some 25 states, mostly along the East Coast and in the Midwest. The stores, which target female shoppers between the ages of 18 and 45, sell low-priced fashion apparel and accessories for the junior, misses, and plus-size markets. The fast-growing company has been opening new stores in some big markets, including Texas and Georgia.

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