Top Retailers Lists

The office supply superstore was born in an era when merchants thought in terms of “category killers.” These were store formats whose merchandise offerings were narrowly edited to a few closely-related classifications, but with very deep selections for the consumer.

Leo Kahn developed the idea for Staples after seeing bulk displays of office supplies in warehouse clubs. Kahn, who died in May at the age of 94, co-founded the company with Tom Stemberg in 1985; it has been a leader of the Big Three office supply retailers since birth, and remains by far the largest.

With an increasing number of retailers selling groceries, where are traditional supermarkets to turn for relief? Many are latching onto health and wellness, appropriating for themselves a territory long owned by drug stores.

Supermarket chains are using their pharmacy counters as more than consumer conveniences and traffic drivers in order to play up the health part of health and wellness.

This sector — consisting of made-over lumber yards, hardware stores and building supply dealers — was spawned in the 1970s, when consumers were enthralled with fixing up their homes through various do-it-yourself projects.

In a struggling economy, the consumers who struggle the most are frequently those who have the least. For them, the low, low prices at small format value retailers are most attractive.

Collectively, dollar stores had a great year in 2010, and that trend has continued. The two biggest chains, Dollar General and Family Dollar, operate more than 16,000 stores and plan to add about 900 more in 2011.