Frank Winfield Woolworth Frank Winfield Woolworth Frank Winfield Woolworth (April 13, 1852 – April 8, 1919) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of F. W. Woolworth Company and the operator of variety stores known as "Five-and-Dimes" (5- and 10-cent stores) or dimestores, which featured a low-priced selection of merchandise. He pioneered the now-common practices of buying merchandise directly from manufacturers and fixing the selling prices on items, rather than haggling. He was also the first to use self-service display cases, so customers could examine what they wanted to buy without the help of a sales clerk. Frank Woolworth was born in Rodman,
F. W. Woolworth Company Champs Sports. By 1989, the company was pursuing an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular concept failed at a given mall, the company could quickly replace it with a different concept. The company aimed for 10 stores in each of the country's major shopping malls, but this never came to pass as Woolworth never developed that many successful specialty store formats. Also attempted was a revision of the classic Woolworth store model into "Woolworth Express", a small, mall-oriented variant which was dubbed "a specialty variety store<nowiki>"</nowiki>, stocked