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W. T. Grant or Grants was a United States-based chain of mass-merchandise stores founded by William Thomas Grant that operated from 1906 until 1976. The stores were generally of the variety store format located in downtowns. ==History== In 1906 the first "W. T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store" opened in Lynn, Massachusetts. Modest profit, coupled with a fast turnover of inventory, caused the stores to grow to almost $100 million annual sales by 1936, the same year that William Thomas Grant started the W. T. Grant Foundation. By the time Grant died in 1972 at age 96, his chain of W. T. Grant Stores had grown to almost 1,200.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Rockefeller Archive Center - WT Grant Foundation )〕 Like many national chain stores and some larger department stores, Grant arranged for a low price exclusive record label, Diva. Columbia Records produced this label which consisted of titles also issued on Columbia's general sale Harmony label and it existed from 1925 through 1930. Based on the number of copies found, it appeared to be a good selling label. Grant continued to sell records after 1930, but they no longer had their own label. Grant's stores were slower than the Kresge stores to adapt to the growth of the suburb and the change in shopping habits that this entailed. The attempt to correct this was belated; in the 1960s and early 1970s, the company built many larger stores (later known as ''Grant City''), but unlike Kresge's Kmart they lacked uniform size and layout, so that a shopper in one did not immediately feel "at home" in another. The chain's demise in 1975 was in part due to a failure to adapt to changing times but was probably accelerated by management's refusal until it was too late to eliminate the shareholder dividend. After the company began to lose money, funds were borrowed to pay the quarterly dividend until this became impossible. A final tactic to stay in business involved requiring Grant's clerks and cashiers to offer a Grant's credit card application to customers to boost sales in the stores. Grant's store-branded electronics and other goods were named ''Bradford'' after Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where William Thomas Grant was born. The in-store restaurants were named ''Bradford House'', and their mascot was a pilgrim named ''Bucky Bradford''. The largest W.T. Grant store was located in Vails Gate, New York. It became a Caldor and several other stores,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Evening News - Google News Archive Search )〕 and is now a Kmart. During the 1950s and 1960s there was a Grant's store located on 87th street and 3rd avenue in Manhattan, New York.〔Alvina S. Ganci, personal memory, New York Yellow Pages〕 Canadian retailer Zellers concluded a deal with the W.T. Grant Company. The Grant Company was allowed to purchase 10% of Zellers common shares, and was given options that eventually translated into a 51% effective ownership of Zellers in 1959. In return for this, the "Grant Company () making available to Zellers its experience on matters of merchandise, real estate, store development, and general administration". Zellers employees were sent to Grant stores and head office for training and together they made common buying trips to Asia, a practice that benefited both companies. By 1976, the Grant Company withdrew from Zellers.〔(Zellers history )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「W. T. Grant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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