Silo (electronics)

Silo was an electronics retailer that opened in 1947 and operated throughout the United States, and closed in 1995. The western region stores were known for a number of years as "Downings" in Colorado and "Appliance-TV City" in Arizona and California.

Silo was founded by Sidney Cooper in Philadelphia, PA, in 1946 following his service in World War II. The company was named for himself and for his wife Lorraine, combining the first two letters of each name. Prior to opening its first retail store, Silo operated as a door-to-door installment business. With the advent of television, Cooper saw an opportunity and seized on it. He opened his first store about 1951 in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia, featuring appliances and televisions. Silo was an early discounter, operating under the name "Silo Discount Centers." Silo regularly opened on Sundays, violating the Blue laws then in effect. Cooper claimed that it was necessary to open on Sunday in order to serve working families, and was even arrested at least once for doing so. On one such occasion, the press was on hand to cover the arrest, apparently tipped off by Cooper himself, who understood the value of free publicity. The company grew rapidly, opening stores throughout the tri-state region over the next twenty years. Silo went public in 1962, raising money to fuel its geographic expansion throughout a region bounded by Trenton, NJ, Wilmington, DE, and Reading, PA. The company's early advertising stressed that the "S" in Silo stood for savings, service, selection and satisfaction. Early store formats of 4,000 to 8,000 square feel were considered large by standards of the day. Later, Silo operated stores of 12,000 to 25,000 square feet, with two warehouse outlets of almost 60,000 square feet in Buffalo, NY and New Orleans, LA. Stores were generally freestanding, with some attached to shopping centers or malls.

In 1970 Silo made its first foray beyond the Philadelphia metro area, purchasing a number of Downing's stores from Sam Bloom in Denver, Colorado. Shortly after, Silo purchased three Appliance-TV City stores in Arizona from its founder, Jay Winslow. The Colorado and Arizona acquisitions enjoyed rapid expansion, as Silo applied its formula of low pricing, huge selection, and hard hitting advertising. The 1970s Silo television jingle, "Silo is having a sale," was so pervasive (and some would add, annoying), that many Philadelphians today can still hum the jingle and would not believe that it has not aired in forty years. In a later example, typical Silo's hard-hitting price promotions, a 1986 advertisement offered a stereo system for "299 bananas." Customers in Seattle and in El Paso took this offer literally and came to the stores with real bananas. Silo honored its offer, trading 32 stereos in Seattle and three in El Paso for bananas. The stores lost $10,465 on these transactions.

In 1972 Silo launched Audio World, a wholly owned subsidiary which sold stereo systems and audio components. Initially a few freestanding stores in the greater Philadelphia area, by 1974 Audio World departments were being incorporated into all existing and new Silo stores when the concept proved successful. The audio expansion came at the expense of small appliances whose profit margins had disappeared for Silo, which thereafter concentrated on retailing only large appliances along with the new audio and TV sections, and was branded as Silo/Audio World for a number of years.

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