Editing Discount store (section)

===United States===
During the period from the 1950s to the late 1980s, discount stores were more popular than the average [[supermarket]] or [[department store]] in the United States. {{citation needed|date=July 2020}} There were hundreds of discount stores in operation, with their most successful period occurring during the mid-1960s in the U.S. with discount store chains such as [[Kmart]], [[Ames (department store)|Ames]], [[Two Guys]], [[Gibson's Discount Center]], [[E. J. Korvette]], [[Mammoth Mart]], [[Fisher's Big Wheel]], [[Zayre]], [[Bradlees]], [[Caldor]], [[Jamesway]], [[Howard Brothers Discount Stores]], [[Kuhn's-Big K]] (sold to [[Walmart]] in 1981), [[TG&Y]]{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} and [[Woolco]] (closed in 1983, part sold to Wal-Mart) among others.<ref name="Walmart Acquires Woolco">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Arkansas|first=Encyclopedia of|title=Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.|url=http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2135|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Arkansas|publisher=The Central Arkansas Library System|access-date=8 February 2013}}</ref>

[[Walmart]], [[Kmart (United States)|Kmart]], and [[Target Corporation|Target]] all opened their first locations in 1962. Kmart was a venture of [[S. S. Kresge Company]] that was a major operator of [[dime stores]]. Other retail companies branched out into the discount store business around that time as adjuncts to their older store concepts. As examples, [[F. W. Woolworth Company|Woolworth]] opened a [[Woolco]] chain (also in 1962); [[Montgomery Ward]] opened [[Jefferson Ward]]; Chicago-based [[Jewel-Osco]] launched [[Turn Style]]; and Central Indiana-based [[L. S. Ayres]] created [[Ayr-Way]]. [[J. C. Penney]] opened discount stores called Treasure Island or [[The Treasury (store)|The Treasury]]; Sheboygan, Wisconsin based [[H. C. Prange Co.]] opened a chain of discount stores called [[Prange Way]], and Atlanta-based [[Rich's (department store)|Rich's]] owned discount stores called [[Richway]].

During the late 1970s and the 1980s, these chains typically were either shut down or sold to a larger competitor.  Kmart and Target themselves are examples of adjuncts, although their growth prompted their respective parent companies to abandon their older concepts (the [[S. S. Kresge]] [[five and dime]] store disappeared, while the [[Target Corporation|Dayton-Hudson Corporation]] eventually divested itself of its department store holdings and renamed itself Target Corporation). {{Citation needed|date=June 2010}}

In the United States, discount stores had 42% of the overall retail market share in 1987; in 2010, they had 87%.<ref>"America's top stores." '''Consumer Reports'', June 2010, p. 17.</ref>

Many of the major discounters now operate "[[Hypermarket|supercenters]]", which adds a full-service grocery store to the traditional format. The [[Meijer]] chain in the Midwest consists entirely of supercenters, while Wal-Mart and Target have focused on the format as of the 1990s as a key to their continued growth. Although discount stores and department stores have different retailing goals and different markets, a recent development in retailing is the "discount department store", such as [[Sears Essentials]], which is a combination of the Kmart and Sears formats, after the companies' merger as [[Sears Holdings Corporation]].