F. W. Woolworth Company Co. had the first five-and-dime stores, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices, usually five or ten cents, undercutting the prices of other local merchants. Woolworth, as the stores popularly became known, was one of the first American retailers to put merchandise out for the shopping public to handle and select without the assistance of a sales clerk. Earlier retailers had kept all merchandise behind a counter and customers presented the clerk with a list of items they wished to buy. After working in Augsbury and Moore dry goods store in Watertown, New York, Frank Winfield Woolworth obtained credit
Variety store last US Woolworth's-branded variety store closed in 1997; however the Woolworth company had success with its subsidiary sports retailer Foot Locker, and the company's name has been officially changed to Foot Locker to reflect the new focus of the business. Beginning around the 1960s, others tried the larger "discount store" format as well, such as W.T. Grant, Woolworth's Woolco stores, and TG&Y Family Centers. Woolworth's opened its first store in the United Kingdom in 1909, when they were also colloquially known as "threepenny and sixpenny" stores, "3d and 6d" being displayed on the shops' frontages. In Japan, 100-yen shops (百円ショップ