Monsoon Commerce Solutions (MCS) helps online retailers and booksellers through its Marketplace Services and Selling Solutions divisions, providing retail management software, distribution assistance, and hosted store services. Its roster of more than 15,000 customers includes libraries, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers in about 50 countries. The Alibris Retail unit operates Alibris.com, an online marketplace for independent sellers of books, music, and movies. Founded in 1998, the firm acquired Monsoon in early 2010 and then reorganized and changed its name. MCS is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners.

Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. operates as a specialty retailer of plush animals and related products. The company’s merchandise includes various styles of animals to be stuffed; and clothing, shoes, and accessories for the stuffed animals. It also licenses its Build-A-Bear Workshop brand to third parties to manufacture and sell merchandise to other retailers. As of January 2, 2010, the company operated 345 company-owned Build-A-Bear Workshop retail stores, including 291 stores in the United States and Canada, 51 stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and 3 stores in France. In addition, its franchisees operated 65 Build-A-Bear Workshop stores in other international locations. Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. also sells its products through a Web store. Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

Golfsmith International caters to country club sports fans. Through its catalogs, website, and more than 70 stores in about 20 states, the company sells golf and tennis equipment, apparel, and accessories from major makers (such as TaylorMade-adidas, Callaway, Mizuno, and Nike) and its own brands (Golfsmith, Clubmaker, Killer Bee, J.G. Hickory, Lynx, and ZTech, among others). It also teaches golfers to assemble their own clubs, and offers custom fitting and repair services for clubs and racquets. In addition to its retail operations, Golfsmith runs the Harvey Penick Golf Academy, an instructional school for golfers in Texas. The company was founded in 1967 as a mail-order seller of custom-made golf clubs.

Uline is a bubble-wrap popper's dream come true. Its sales catalog features more than 20,000 packaging and shipping supplies (such as bubble wrap, corrugated boxes, envelopes, tape), janitorial products (brooms, cleaning supplies, trash cans), and other items (bags, merchandise tags, pricing devices). The company also markets products through its website. Uline operates distribution centers in California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Texas. International locations include facilities in Canada and Mexico. Started in 1980 in the founder's basement, the company is owned and operated by the Uihlein family. Uline relocated its headquarters to Wisconsin in 2010.

Bare Escentuals sells its products in the US through about 120 company-owned shops, 870 beauty product retailers, and 1,470 spas and salons. It also boasts distributors in Canada, Japan, and the UK and other European countries. Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido acquired Bare Escentuals for $1.7 billion in 2010. When it comes to keeping its customers looking naturally pretty, Bare Escentuals has a mineral interest. The company, which rolled out its bareMinerals makeup brand in 1976 along with its first retail shop, develops, markets, and sells natural cosmetics, skin care, and body care items. Brand names include bareMinerals, Buxom, md formulations, RareMinerals, and its namesake line.

Lyreco was founded in 1926. To a stationer's ears, Lyreco sounds poetic-- and lucrative. Catering to the business-to-business market, stationery and office supply giant Lyreco operates from some 180 locations in about 30 countries. In the UK it operates under the name Lyreco UK. Through alliances with Staples and other distributors, Lyreco's distribution network has an even greater reach. Customers may order their supplies via the Internet, the company's stores, or catalog. Products include computer supplies, envelopes, filing products, furniture, labels, paper, and writing instruments. Stores carry the company's own brand of office supplies as well as major names such as 3M, BIC, HP, Lexmark, PILOT, and Quill.

LTD Commodities was founded in 1963 as a small mail-order business. You won't find soybeans or pork bellies, but you can buy a little silver (as in a pair of sterling silver earrings) from LTD Commodities. The company, which also does business under the ABC Distributing name, is a business-to-business supplier of apparel for women, men, and children, as well as home and garden accessories, jewelry, electronics, luggage, toys, furniture, gift items, and other general merchandise. LTD Commodities sells its products through numerous catalogs as well as the Internet. It ships only to US business addresses.

Hollywood Media Corp. provides online ticketing services and entertainment-related services. The company’s Ad Sales segment sells advertising on plasma TV displays, and cinema and theater Web sites in the United Kingdom and Ireland; and on lobby display posters, movie brochure booklets, and ticket wallets distributed in cinemas, live theater, and other entertainment venues in the United Kingdom. It also holds a 26.2% ownership interest in MovieTickets.com, a seller of online movie tickets. Hollywood Media Corp.’s Intellectual Properties segment owns or controls the rights to certain intellectual properties created by various authors and media celebrities, which it licenses for book and other media. It also owns a 51% interest in Tekno Books, a book development business. Hollywood Media Corp. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida.

Lentuo International Inc. operates as an automobile retailer in the People’s Republic of China. It sells passenger vehicles, auto parts, and accessories; offers automobile repair and maintenance services; and provides a channel for vehicle manufacturers to gather customer feedback. The company also offers its customers assistance with procuring automobile insurance and financing and other automobile-related services. In addition, Lentuo International provides luxury or specialty vehicles on rent for business use by corporations or corporate executives. As of June 30, 2010, it operated 6 franchise dealerships, 10 automobile showrooms, and 1 automobile repair shop in the Beijing metropolitan area. The company was founded in 1994 and is based in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China.

American Farms certainly hopes that its corporate strategies lead to perennial success. Established in 1991 with 10 acres, the company, a wholesale grower of flowering pot crops, now comprises more than 100 acres in Florida. It produces more than 100 varieties of annuals and herbaceous perennials, as well as flowering tropicals, landscape ferns and grasses, seasonal crops, and more. The majority of American Farms' sales are in the state of Florida, where it's one of the top growers of flowering plants, and more than half are to mass merchandisers (Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart) in the southeastern US. In addition, the company sells to independent garden centers and landscapers.

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