What do adventurers Ted Baker and J. Peterman have in common? They're both charming, slick, stylish (of course), and sheer fabrications of marketing. British clothier Ted Baker is the official outfitter of trendy lads in the UK. For men on the go, Ted makes a wrinkle-proof suit, an anti-bacterial shirt, and a bed-in-a-box linen set whose pillows contain a special condom pocket. For the birds and the nippers, there are Ted Baker Woman, Teddy Boy, and Teddy Girl. Accessories include skinwear, fragrances, eyewear, and watches. Ted has about 70 retail shops located in the UK and internationally; "his" clothes can also be found in about 125 other stores. CEO Raymond Kelvin owns about 40% of Ted Baker.

JLP has several manufacturing subsidiaries that make wooden furniture, and bedding; its 4,000-acre Leckford Estate in Hampshire grows apples, pears, mushrooms, and produces milk, poultry, and eggs for sale in Waitrose supermarkets. JLP has an online shopping service, John Lewis Direct, and its employee pension plan owns about 24% of Internet grocer Ocado, which delivers Waitrose products.What began as a London drapery shop is today one of the UK's largest retailers -- and arguably its most oddly organized. John Lewis Partnership (JLP) runs about 30 John Lewis department stores and some 235 Waitrose supermarkets, primarily in London and southern England, but also in Scotland and Wales.

J.P. Boden & Co. (better known simply as Boden) is a UK direct retailer of premium casual apparel. The company sells womenswear and menswear under the Boden name, teen apparel under the Johnnie B label, and children's clothing under the Mini Boden brand. It markets the collections through its catalogs and Web site. J.P. Boden also operates two retail stores in the UK. The company got its start in 1991 when chairman Johnnie Boden quit his job as a stockbroker in London to open up his own clothing business. Designing its catalogs to resemble those of J. Crew, the company's first editions featured friends and family striking poses as fashion models. Boden is a 50% owner of the firm.

Luckily, Ace has John Madden up its sleeve. Despite the growth of warehouse-style competitors, Ace Hardware has remained a household name, thanks to ads featuring Madden, a former Oakland Raiders football coach and retired TV commentator. By sales the company is the #1 hardware cooperative in the US, ahead of Do It Best. Ace dealer-owners operate about 4,500 Ace Hardware stores, home centers, and lumber and building materials locations in all 50 US states and more than 60 other countries. From about 15 warehouses Ace distributes such products as electrical and plumbing supplies, garden equipment, hand tools, housewares, and power tools. Its paint division is also a major paint manufacturer in the US.

First Supply has been owned and operated by the Poehling family since it was founded in 1897. Why bother with the second or third, when you can buy through First Supply? With about 25 locations in the upper Midwest, First Supply distributes a large inventory of building, fluid-handling, heating and cooling, plumbing, refrigeration, and waterworks supplies to industrial customers and contractors. Several of the locations feature Gerhards Showrooms, which display kitchen and bath wares from manufacturers such as Delta, Kohler, Moen, and Jacuzzi. First Supply LLC also provides such services as pipe and hydraulic-hose fabrication and valve actuation.

Boise Cascade has a proven track record of providing quality wood products and a nationwide building materials distribution network for our customers, helping them to enhance their own businesses. We manufacture engineered wood products, plywood, lumber, and particleboard and distribute a broad line of building materials, including wood products manufactured by the company’s wood products division. Boise Cascade Holdings, L.L.C. is privately owned and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.

Hoopers is running circles around its competition. Founded in 1982, the company is a retail store operator with five UK-based department stores nationwide (Harrogate, Torquay, Tunbridge Wells, Wilmslow, Carlisle), as well as three menswear stores. The company specializes in designer and branded fashion. Its departments include womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, cosmetics, gifts, cookware and glassware, and furniture and linens. Hoopers is a partial owner of department store chain Beale through its Lawdene investing subsidiary. The company is owned by father and son team David and Richard Thompson.

Ideal Shopping Direct (ISD) operates a home shopping television network that reaches some 23 million homes throughout the UK. The company's three channels are: Create and Craft (health and beauty, craft products); Ideal World (general merchandise, including apparel, leisure, craft, home, health and beauty, and jewelry); and Ideal World 2, which runs repeats of selected shows from its sister channels. Paul Wright and Valerie Kaye founded the company in 1999 after a series of failed businesses, seeding the idea for television shopping with a mail-order business and later transferring to TV in 2000.

Dixons Retail plc operates as a specialist electrical and computing retailer. Dixons Retail sells products in the categories of brown goods, white goods, computing products, and mobile phones. The brown goods include vision products, such as televisions and DVD players; audio products comprising stereos, iPods, and MP3 players; imaging products, such as cameras and camcorders; gaming products that include games consoles; and related accessories. The white goods comprise domestic appliances, such as washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, and gas and electric cookers; and small domestic appliances, which include microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners, kettles, coffee makers, toasters, irons, and bread makers. The computing products consist of desktop computers, laptop computers, iPads, netbooks, printers, and accessories; and mobile phones include pre-paid and contract mobile phones, mobile broadband modems, and related accessories. Dixons Retail also undertakes business to business sales and services, as well as provides product support services to customers. It operates its retail stores under the Currys, PC World, Dixons Travel, TechGuys, Elkjøp, Lefdal, El Giganten, Gigantti, Kotsovolos, UniEuro, Electro World, PC City, PIXmania, and Dixons.co.uk brands. Dixons Retail sells its products through stores, Internet, and by phone. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Spain, Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Dixons Retail was formerly known as DSG International plc and changed its name to Dixons Retail plc in September 2010. Dixons Retail plc is headquartered in Hemel Hempstead, the United Kingdom.

Big Lots, Inc. is the nation's #1 broadline closeout retailer, with some 1,360 Big Lots stores (down from a high of 1,500 at the start of 2005) in 47 states. (More than one-third of its stores are located in California, Florida, Ohio, and Texas.) It sells a variety of brand-name products that have been overproduced, returned, discontinued, or result from liquidations, typically at 20%-40% below discounters' prices, as well as private-label items and furniture. Its wholesale division, Big Lots Wholesale, sells its discounted merchandise to a variety of retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and other wholesalers.

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