Selfridges in Birmingham.

Selfridges is a chain of department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by American entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge who opened a large store in London's Oxford Street on 15 March 1909. Image File history File linksMetadata Bullring_birmingham. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Bullring_birmingham. ... The city from above Centenary Square. ... The interior of a typical Macys department store. ... An entrepreneur (a loanword from French) is a person who undertakes and operates a new enterprise or venture and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks. ... Harry Gordon Selfridge (January 11, 1858 – May 8, 1947) was an American-born retail magnate, who founded the British department store Selfridges. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and the largest city of England (strangely, England has no constitutional existence within the United Kingdom, and therefore cannot be said to have a capital). ... Oxford Street, from the top deck of a bus Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in London, England in the City of Westminster, and one of the worlds most famous streets for shopping. ... March 15 is the 74th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (75th in Leap years). ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

H. Gordon Selfridge was born in 1858 in Ripon, Wisconsin, and in 1879 joined Field, Leiter and Company (later to become Marshall Field & Company), where he worked under the Chicago retailer of the same name. He worked his way up through the firm, married into the prominent Buckingham family, and amassed the fortune with which he built his new London store. 1858 (MDCCCLVIII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Ripon is a city located in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. ... 1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Marshall Field (1834 -1906) was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago based chain of department stores. ...

Selfridge's innovative marketing led to his success. He tried to make shopping a fun adventure instead of a chore. He put merchandise on display so customers could examine it, put the highly profitable perfume counter front-and-center on the ground floor, and established policies that made it safe and easy for customers to shop — techniques that have been adopted by modern department stores the world over.

Selfridge is popularly held to have coined the phrase "the customer is always right", and he did use it regularly in his extensive advertising. The phrase, however, predated Selfridge by centuries; he may have assimilated it while purchasing Farsi rugs in Mumbai. Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Billboards and street advertising in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, (2005) Advertising is paid communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. ... Farsi may refer to: The name of the the Persian language among native speakers Farsi Island, an Iranian island in the Persian Gulf The Jafari Shia Tajiks of Central Asia Salman al-Farsi, one of the prophet Muhammads companions Al-Farisi (1260-1320), Persian mathematician and physicist Jalaleddin Farsi... Mumbai (Marathi: मुंबई,IPA: , formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of the state of Maharashtra, and the most populous city of India, also it is the second most populous city in the world with an estimated population of about 13 million (as of 2006). ...

He attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits. He was himself interested in education and science, and believed that the displays would introduce potential new customers to Selfridges, generating both immediate and long-term sales.

In 1909, after the first cross-Channel flight, Louis Blériot's monoplane was exhibited at Selfridges, where it was seen by 12,000 people. The first public demonstration of television was by John Logie Baird from the first floor of Selfridges from 1-27 April 1925. Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Satellite view of the English Channel The English Channel (French: La Manche (IPA: ), the sleeve) is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the island of Great Britain from northern France and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. ... Louis Blériot Louis Blériot (July 1, 1872 – August 2, 1936) was a French inventor and engineer, who performed the first flight over a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft. ... A monoplane is an aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. ... Bust of John Logie Baird in Helensburgh. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

A Milne-Shaw seismograph was set up on the Selfridge store’s third floor in 1932, attached to one of the building's main stanchions, unaffected by traffic or shoppers. It recorded the Belgian earthquake of 11 June 1938 which was also felt in London. At the outbreak of war, the seismograph was moved from its original site near the Post Office to another part of the store. In 1947, the seismograph was given to the British Museum. Seismographs (in Greek seismos = earthquake and graphein = write) are used by seismologists to record seismic waves. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... June 11 is the 162nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (163rd in leap years), with 203 days remaining. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Small-town post office and town hall in Lockhart, Alabama A post office is a facility (in most countries, a government one) where the public can purchase postage stamps for mailing correspondence or merchandise, and also drop off or pick up packages or other special-delivery items. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, with a tessellated glass roof by Buro Happold and Foster and Partners surrounding the original Reading Room. ...

The provincial stores were sold to the John Lewis Partnership in the 1940s. The remaining Oxford Street store was acquired in 1951 by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores, which was in turn taken over in 1965 by the Sears group of Charles Clore.^[1] Between 1998 and 2003, the store supplemented its 460,000 square-foot main store with a 150,000 square-foot outlet at Trafford Centre in Manchester, a 120,000 square-foot outlet in the Marks & Spencer building in Exchange Square, Manchester, and a 160,000 square-foot store in the Birmingham Bull Ring shopping complex. One of John Lewis flagship branches in Glasgows Buchanan Galleries mall The John Lewis Partnership is a major United Kingdom retailer, operating department stores and, through its Waitrose subsidiary, upmarket supermarkets. ... Oxford Street, from the top deck of a bus Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in London, England in the City of Westminster, and one of the worlds most famous streets for shopping. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. ... Lewiss was a department store operating in the United Kingdom from 1856 to the 1990s. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Sir Charles Clore (1904-1979) was a British financier, retail and property magnate and philanthropist. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre located in Trafford in Greater Manchester, England, UK. // It has 118,766 square metres (1. ... Marks & Spencer plc (known also as M&S, Your M&S and sometimes colloquially as Marks and Sparks, Marks or Markss) is a British retailer, with several branches outside of the UK. It is one of the most widely recognised chain stores in the UK and is the largest... 2003 Bull Ring _ St Martins church and Selfridges The Bull Ring market has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages. ...

Selfridge stores are known for architectural excellence. Their main store was designed by Daniel Burnham, who also crafted Marshall Field's main store in his home town of Chicago. The London store was built in phases, the first phase consisting only of the nine-and-a-half bays closest to the Duke Street corner.^[2] A scheme to erect a massive tower above the store was never carried out.^[3] Also involved in the design of the store were the American architect Francis Swales, who worked on decorative details, and the British architect Frank Atkinson.^[4] The 160,000 square foot Birmingham store, designed by architects Future Systems, is covered in 15,000 spun aluminium discs. Daniel H. Burnham. ... Marshall Field (1834 -1906) was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago based chain of department stores. ... Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An Ciara Danille Bowers is a person who is involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction. ... The Media Centre at Lords Cricket Ground Selfridges in Birmingham Birmingham Selfridges Exterior Detail Birmingham Selfridges Interior Future Systems is a London-based architectural and design practice, headed by the couple, Jan Kaplický and Amanda Levete. ... Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ...

In 2003, the chain was acquired by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million. Weston, a retailing expert who is the owner of Canada's major supermarket chains Loblaws and No Frills among others, has chosen to invest in renovation of the Oxford Street store, rather than to immediately carry out planned expansion to Leeds, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Bristol, and Glasgow.^[5] 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Willard Gordon Galen Weston, OC, OOnt, (born October 29, 1940) is a Canadian businessman and descendant of George Weston of the George Weston Bakeries Limited. ... Loblaws is a supermarket chain of 68 stores, headquartered in Toronto, with stores across Ontario and Quebec. ... Oxford Street, from the top deck of a bus Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in London, England in the City of Westminster, and one of the worlds most famous streets for shopping. ... Statistics Population: 443,247 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: SE297338 Administration Metropolitan borough: City of Leeds Metropolitan county: West Yorkshire Region: Yorkshire and the Humber Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: West Yorkshire Historic county: Yorkshire (West Riding) Services Police force: West Yorkshire Police Ambulance service... This article is about a city in the United Kingdom. ... Bristol (IPA: ) is a city, unitary authority and ceremonial county in South West England, 115 miles (185 km) west of London and between the cities of Bath, Gloucester and Newport and the borough of Swindon. ... For other uses, see Glasgow (disambiguation). ...

Further reading

• Honeycombe, Gordon. Selfridges, Seventy-Five Years: The Story of the Store 1909-84. London, 1984

References

1. ^ http://www.selfridges.com/index.cfm?page=1044 http://www.selfridges.com/index.cfm?page=1044.
2. ^ English Heritage: Selfridge's Department Store, Oxford Street, London.
3. ^ http://www.ngca.co.uk/imagelib/selfridges%2072.jpg.
4. ^ Morrison, Kathryn A. English Shops & Shopping: An Architectural History. Yale 2003. ISBN 0-300-10219-4
5. ^ BBC News

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Selfridges

• Selfridges website