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
F. W. Woolworth Company Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store. The following year, in 1963, Woolworth expanded into the shoe store business with the purchase of Kinney Shoe Corporation, which eventually created the store that Woolworth would be taken over by, Foot Locker. By Woolworth’s 100th anniversary in 1979, it had become the largest department store chain in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. During the 1980s, the company began expansion into many different specialty store formats, including Afterthoughts (which sold jewelry and other accessories for women), Northern Reflections (which sold cold-weather outerwear), Rx Place (later sold to Phar-Mor), and