Sears

Sears, Roebuck and Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD), is a leading broadline retailer providing merchandise and related services. Sears, Roebuck offers its wide range of home merchandise, apparel and automotive products and services through more than 2,400 Sears-branded and affiliated stores in the United States and Canada, which includes approximately 926 full-line and 1,100 specialty stores in the U.S. Sears, Roebuck also offers a variety of merchandise and services through sears.com, landsend.com, and specialty catalogs. Sears, Roebuck offers consumers leading proprietary brands including Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard and Lands' End -- among the most trusted and preferred brands in the U.S. The company is the nation's largest provider of home services, with more than 13 million service calls made annually.

Type -  Subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation
Founded  - 1886 (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
Headquarters  - Hoffman Estates, Illinois, USA
Industry  - Retail
Products  -  Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, appliances, housewares, tools, and electronics.
Revenue -  $23.6 Billion
Slogan -  Where It Begins

Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world based on sales volume, headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, United States,  with its flagship warehouse in nearby Seattle. Costco's Canadian operations are based near Ottawa, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Type - Public (NASDAQ: COST)
Founded  - 1983 (Seattle, Washington)
Headquarters  -  Issaquah, Washington
Key people -  James Sinegal, Founder & CEO
Jeffrey Brotman, Founder & Chairman
Richard Galanti, CFO
Dick DiCerchio, COO
Industry Retail -  (Warehouse Club)
Products Retail -  (Specialty)
Private Label - Kirkland Signature
Revenue -  $60.2 billion USD (2006)
Employees -  132,000

CompUSA
CompUSA, Inc. is a retailer and reseller of consumer electronics, technology products and computer services. CompUSA serves consumer retail, small-to-medium businesses, corporate, government and education customers. Founded in 1984 and based in Addison, Texas (a northern suburb of Dallas), CompUSA currently operates 103 stores in markets across the United States and Puerto Rico.

CompUSA's retail Web site offers an assortment of over 19,000 products and the ability to schedule technology services and training sessions. Businesses may order from a catalog containing more than 220,000 products as well as select from over 100,000 online products.

Type - Private
Founded - 1984 (Addison, Texas)
Headquarters -  Addison, Texas
Key people -  Carlos Slim, Owner; Roman Ross, CEO; Mike Bryk, CFO; Gabriela Villalobos, EVP, Sales and Operations
Industry - Retail
Products -  Electronics
Revenue -  US$4.7 billion
Employees -  14,000

Kmart
Kmart is a chain of department stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. The chain merged with Sears in 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation. Kmart also exists in Australia and New Zealand (see Kmart Australia), although it now shares no current relation with the American stores except in name after US equity in the Australian business was purchased in the late 1970s.

The company's business model makes it a direct competitor to Wal-Mart and Target.

Type -  Subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation
Founded -  1899 as the S. S. Kresge Company (Detroit, Michigan), 1962 as Kmart
Headquarters -  Hoffman Estates, Illinois, USA
Industry - Retail
Products -  Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares.

Guitar Center

Guitar Center is the largest chain of musical instrument retailers in the world and is located throughout the United States. Its headquarters is in Westlake Village, California. On June 27, 2007, Guitar Center agreed to $1.9 billion buyout from Bain Capital, totaling $2.1 billion including debt. The deal was led by Goldman Sachs and amounted to a per-share price of $63, or a 26% premium on June 26's closing price.

Type -  Privately held, Bain Capital
Founded  -1961
Headquarters- Westlake Village, California
Key people - Marty Albertson, CEO
Erick Mason, CFO
John Zavada, CIO
William Deeney, CLO
 
Industry Specialty -  Retail: Musicial Instruments
Products - Musicial instruments, Recording equipment, accessories
Revenue - $ 1.78 billion USD
Employees - 10,000

Sports Authority

Sports Authority is the USA's largest full line sporting goods retailer. The company is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado. It operates over 400 stores in 45 U.S. states under the Sports Authority name. Total sales for the fiscal year ending January 29, 2005 were $2.44 billion.

The company's e-tailing website (located at sportsauthority.com), is operated by GSI Commerce, Inc. under license and e-commerce agreements.

General Nutrition Centers
General Nutrition Centers or GNC is a Pittsburgh-based American commercial enterprise focusing on the retail sale of health and nutrition related products, over the counter drugs, and foods/food supplements world-wide through GNC branded stores.

GNC's origins began in Pittsburgh, 1935, when David Shakarian founded a chain of health food stores called Lackzoom. The name changed to "General Nutrition Centers" in the 1960s, and has since become the world's largest health products retailer

Michaels
Michaels is the largest arts and crafts retail chain in the United States. It currently operates over 900 Michaels Arts and Crafts Stores located in 48 states and in Canada. The company also owns the Aaron Brothers, ReCollections, and Star Decorators Wholesale Warehouse retail chains. The corporate headquarters are located in Irving, Texas. The company employs 12,500 people.

The average Michaels store now contains 40,000 different products in 18,200 square feet (1,700 m²) of selling space. The typical store has roughly $3.9 million in annual sales

Wal-Mart Stores
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is an American public corporation, currently one of the world's largest corporations (By Number Of Employees) according to the 2007 Fortune 500. It was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is the largest private employer in the world and world's fourth largest utility or commercial employer, only trailing the Chinese Army, the NHS and the Indian Railways. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States, with an estimated 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business, and the largest toy seller in the U.S., with an estimated 45% of the retail toy business, having surpassed Toys "R" Us in the late 1990s.