Selfridges
From Free net encyclopedia
Selfridges is a chain of department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge who opened a large store in London's Oxford Street on 15 March 1909. Selfridges is credited with coining the phrase "The customer is always right", by using extensive advertising. Instead of keeping products behind counters, Selfridges decided to place them on displays that were more accessible to customers. Such changes were soon adopted by other retailers. Selfridges was also the first retailer to have the perfume counters at the front of the store on the ground floor, something that all department stores now do.
H. Gordon Selfridge was genuinely interested in education and science, and believed that by attracting people into his store with educational and scientific exhibits, he would induce them to spend time and money there, and perhaps return.
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 April-27 April 1925.
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 June 11, 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.
After the sale of its provincial stores in the 1940s, Selfridges remained a one-location business until 1998 when it opened its first store outside London, at the Trafford Centre, on the outskirts of Manchester. By the end of 2003, Selfridges had four stores: two in Manchester and (the latest) one in Birmingham's Bullring shopping complex which opened in September 2003. The Birmingham store is covered in 15,000 spun aluminium discs and was designed by architects Future Systems. A further store is scheduled to open in Glasgow in 2007. In 2003, the chain was acquired by the family holding company of Galen Weston, which has spent a substantial sum renovating the flagship location on Oxford Street.