History
Service Merchandise was originally founded in 1934 by Harry and Mary Zimmerman as a five-and-dime store in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee, near Nashville. The first of what evolved into a huge chain of catalog showrooms opened in 1960 on Broadway St. in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Service Merchandise was the nation's top catalog-showroom retailer. At its peak, the company achieved more than $4 billion in annual sales. As the company expanded, it began to open showrooms nationwide, mostly in the vicinity of major shopping malls, which were coming into vogue in the mid-1970s. In the early 1980s, the Service Merchandise headquarters moved from Nashville to nearby Brentwood, TN, becoming one of the first businesses to plant itself in the area that is now known as Cool Springs. In May 1985 the H. J. Wilson Co. was acquired by Service Merchandise for approximately $200M. Raymond Zimmerman, CEO was attracted to Wilson's stores to gain a firmer foothold in the Sunbelt states. Several of these Wilson's locations included an off-priced apparel department of about 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2). Service Merchandise also had other wholly owned subsidiaries featuring retail stores such as Zim's Jewelers, HomeOwners Warehouse (later called Mr. HOW Warehouse), The Lingerie Store, and The Toy Store.
Service Merchandise was a prominent sponsor of Wheel of Fortune. During that game show's shopping era (1975-1989 in daytime, 1983-1987 in syndication), contestants could opt to take a gift certificate from the company if they didn't have enough money to purchase any of the prizes shown. In addition, they also provided some of the prizes on The Price Is Right, Shop 'til You Drop on The Family Channel, and Shopping Spree.
Read more about this topic: Service Merchandise
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)