Chain retailing

Chain store(s) or retail chain are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. In retail, dining, and many service categories, chain businesses have come to dominate the market in many parts of the world. A franchise retail establishment is one form of chain store. In 2004, the world's largest retail chain, Wal-Mart, became the world's largest corporation based on gross sales.

In the U.S., chain stores began with the founding of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) in 1859. Initially the small chain sold tea and coffee in stores located in New York City and operated a national mail order business. The firm grew to 70 stores by 1878 when George Huntington Hartford turned A&P into the country's first grocery chain. In 1900, it operated almost 200 stores.

Isidore, Benjamin and Modeste Dewachter originated the idea of the chain department store in Belgium when they incorporated Dewachter frères (Dewachter Brothers) on January 1, 1875, three years before A&P began offering more than coffee and tea. The brothers also introduced the idea of ready-made – or ready-to-fit – clothing for men and children, and specialty clothing such as riding apparel and beachwear. Isidore owned 51% of the company, while his brothers split the remaining 49%. They started with four locations: the tiny crossroads village of Leuze, La Louvière and two at Mons. Under Isidore's (and later his son Louis') leadership, Maison Dewachter (House of Dewachter) would become one of the most recognized names in Belgium and France with 20 locations. Louis Dewachter also became an internationally known landscape artist, painting under the pseudonym Louis Dewis.

By the early 1920s, the U.S. boasted three national chains: A&P, Woolworth's, and United Cigar Stores. By the 1930s, chain stores had come of age, and stopped increasing their total market share. Court decisions against the chains' price-cutting appeared as early as 1906, and laws against chain stores began in the 1920s, along with legal countermeasures by chain-store groups.

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