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
Charles Sumner Woolworth more than $30 million in the stock flotation. Frank was elected President of the new combined corporation. The others, Sum Woolworth, Fred Kirby, Seymour Knox, Earle Charlton, and William Moore, became directors. The Woolworth brothers' many trips to Europe opened their vision of new markets. Keeping with their pattern of bringing relatives and friends into the business, in 1909, Sum and Frank put their second cousin, Fred Moore Woolworth, in charge of opening a subsidiary in Great Britain, "F. W. Woolworth Co Ltd". Fred was joined by three established men in the Woolworth operation, Byron Miller, Samuel Balfour and Charles