Clas Ohlson company was founded in 1918 by the technically minded Clas Ohlson (1895–1979), as a mail order business based in the Swedish village of Insjön, Dalarna. Initially, only manuals and technical literature were sold, thus allowing people who lived in rural communities to obtain literature that would otherwise be unavailable. He opened his first shop in Insjön in 1926, but it was not until 1989, when the company opened a store in a shopping centre in central Stockholm, that it expanded into the retail business. The first store outside Sweden was opened 1991 in Oslo in Norway and in 1999, the
Mica DIY the larger corporate stores. The business is owned and directed by its members, but management-run. It is similar to Spar or Nisa in many ways – working for hardware and DIY stores as they do in the grocery industry. Independent DIY retail in the UK has been dramatically squeezed since the arrival of the chain stores, and more recently the online marketplace. September 2014 saw spend the in DIY/Garden category at £69 million for independents in the UK, but £700 million for multiples, suggesting a current market share of under 9%. Mica was set up in the UK in 1995/6