Costco Wholesale UK Limited operates about 20 members-only warehouse clubs in England and Scotland. The company is owned by the #1 US wholesale club operator Costco Wholesale, which has been gradually adding UK locations. The big-box stores sell appliances, consumer electronics, health and beauty products, groceries, and more. Membership fees are similar to those in the US. The company has been able to grow faster than competitors, including Wal-Mart-owned ASDA and Britain's #1 retailerTesco, because its status as a warehouse-club chain exempts it from zoning rules other retailers face when opening new stores. Costco Wholesale UK ultimately aims to grow to 40 stores and is exploring entering the Irish market.

Steinhoff UK Retail wants it customers to fill their homes with furniture with its help. Formerly named Homestyle Group until 2007, the company is one of Britain's largest furniture retailers. Its furniture division, Harveys Furnishing Group, operates about 170 Harveys: The Furniture Store shops throughout the UK. Its beds division operates Bensons Beds (the UK's largest bed retailer with 220 stores and 15,000 branded beds), Bed Shed (more than 50 stores primarily in Scotland), and Sleepmasters (with nearly 120 retail sites in the UK). Steinhoff Europe AG, a subsidiary of Steinhoff International Holdings (SIH), took the company private in 2007.

Carter Lumber was founded by Warren E. Carter in 1932, and it continues to be a family-owned business. Carter Lumber has the answer when new home construction has you hollering "timber!" The company owns more than 200 lumber and home improvement stores in 10 states from Michigan to South Carolina. The company caters to both contractors and do-it-yourselfers, supplying them with lumber, plywood, roofing, windows, doors, plumbing and electrical products, heating equipment, tools, siding, and other products. The home improvement retailer also owns Carter-Jones Lumber, which runs a 17-acre lumberyard and custom millwork facilities in Ohio.

Vivarte (formerly Groupe Andre) is a giant in European shoes and clothes. One of Europe's leading manufacturers and sellers of footwear and apparel, it operates some 4,400 stores in France and about 10 other countries in Europe, including Germany, Italy, and Spain, under about 20 different banners. Its discount footwear and apparel stores operate under the La Halle aux Chaussures, Chaussland, and Besson Chaussures names. Other stores operate under the Caroll, Kookai, La Halle, Naf Naf, Super Sport, and Fosco names. Vivarte is owned by the UK-based private equity firm Charterhouse Capital Partners, which acquired the company from PAI Partners in 2007.

Named for the English port that once supplied its imported goods, Mexico's El Puerto de Liverpool offers clothing for men, women, and children, as well as appliances, consumer electronics, home furnishings, and more. With some 65 department stores (divided between the Liverpool and Fabrica de Francia names) in Mexico's largest cities, the company's upper-income customer base remains essentially unchanged from 1847, when young Juan Bautista Ebrard began selling clothes from a Mexico City market stall. Liverpool also owns and manages shopping malls in its home country and is one of the largest issuers of credit cards in Mexico. The company has expanded by buying malls and opening new stores throughout Mexico.

The North West Company operates more than 220 stores in remote areas of Canada, Alaska, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. Its stores, which include Northern (its flagship), NorthMart, Giant Tiger, AC Value Center, and Cost-U-Less, sell groceries and general merchandise, as well as clothing (at some stores) and other items suited to local community needs. The company also operates a small chain of convenience stores, as well as a financial services company that provides prepaid credit and debit cards.While most retailers grapple for commercial real estate in big cities, The North West Company is quietly building up store locations far from the fray. Serving rural and urban communities

The CARQUEST group includes a network of about 40 distribution centers serving more than 3,400 distributor-owned and independent jobbers in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The company sells its own line of auto parts (made by Moog Automotive, Dana, Gates, and others) to the jobbers, as well as wholesalers, for eventual resale to professional repair centers, service stations, dealerships, and, to a lesser degree, do-it-yourself (DIY) customers. Searching for a sensor, solenoid, or switches? CARQUEST can steer you in the right direction. The replacement auto parts distribution group is owned by its member warehouse distributors (the largest is North Carolina-based General Parts).

Bi-Mart Corporation retailer operates about 70 general merchandise membership stores throughout Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.(About 20 are in the Portland area.) Just $5 buys a lifetime membership to the deep-discount chain, which has enrolled more than 1 million members to date. Stores offer automotive departments, clothing and shoes, food and alcohol, housewares, full-service pharmacies, and photo departments, with a focus on national brands. A pioneer in membership-based retail, Bi-Mart was started in 1955 by a group of investors in Yakima, Washington. The firm was bought by CEO Marty Smith and other senior managers from Rite Aid Corp. in 1997. Today, the company is employee-owned.

J. Front Retailing fronts the retail operations of leading Japanese department stores The Daimaru and Matsuzakaya Holdings. The holding company was created by the merger of the two ailing rivals in 2007. The Daimaru, founded as a drapery shop in 1717, operates about 15 upscale shops in western Japan. Matsuzakaya, founded in 1611 as a kimono retailer, runs eight department stores in central Japan, including its flagship location in Nagoya. J. Front's Peacock Stores unit operates some 90 supermarkets in the Chubu, Kansai, and Tokyo districts of Japan. The company's other activities include construction, credit services, direct marketing, furniture making, restaurants, and wholesale textiles.

Popular culture goes on sale every day at Bloomingdale's. It runs about 40 upscale stores in a dozen states, including California, Florida, Illinois, and New York. The company's flagship store at 59th and Lexington is a Manhattan institution and tourist attraction in its own right. A smaller Manhattan store opened in downtown's SoHo neighborhood in 2004. In 2010 Bloomies opened its first store outside the US: a 200,000-square-foot outlet in Dubai. Founded in 1872 by brothers Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale, the store rode the popularity of the hoop skirt to sales success and practically invented the department store concept at the start of the 20th Century. Bloomingdale's is a division of Macy's, Inc.

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