- Many modern-day retailers that you know and love have been around for years.
- Business Insider collected retro photographs of retailers like Costco, Walmart, and Macy’s.
- These images show just how much retail stores have changed over the decades.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Everyone gets their start somewhere. And it’s no different for major national retailers.
Plenty of modern-day national big-box and department stores have been around for decades, undergoing the crucial changes necessary to survive in the brutal retail business. Still others maintain glimmers of their old selves, like Walmart’s perpetual focus on low prices and the warehouse layout adopted by Home Depot and Costco.
Here’s a look at early iterations of major retailers:
The first-ever Walmart store opened up on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas.
Source: Business Insider
Founder Sam Walton had operated a number of Ben Franklin stores in Arkansas since 1945 and opened Walton's Five and Dime five years after that.
Source: Business Insider
The new Walmart chain focused specifically on discounts. It would one day become the world's largest retailer.
Source: Business Insider
Macy's Herald Square flagship store in New York City may have become famous, but the retailer didn't get its start in Manhattan. A dry goods business that would later become Macy's first opened its doors in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1851.
Source: Macy's
Seven years later, founder Rowland Hussey Macy would take his business to the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City.
Source: Macy's
The company that would become Best Buy launched in 1966 as a single St. Paul, Minnesota, audio store known as Sound of Music. Sound of Music rebranded into Best Buy in 1983.
Source: MPR News
17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad first founded the business that would become Ikea in 1943, selling odds and ends like pens and picture frames.
Source: Business Insider
By 1948, the business pivoted to locally sourced furniture, establishing a successful catalog business.
Source: Business Insider
The company built its first ever store in Älmhult, Sweden, in 1958. That inaugural store would come to have the playroom and restaurant that Ikea is still known for today.
Source: Business Insider
Home Depot was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 22, 1979, when twin 600,000-square-foot locations opened up for the first time on Memorial Drive and Buford Highway.
Source: Business Insider
These two initial Home Depots were a bit smaller than their modern counterparts, but they still had the modern retailer's low-key warehouse layout.
Source: Business Insider
By the end of 1979, Home Depot had three stores, 200 employees, and a total of $81,700 in sales.
Source: Business Insider
The modern day members-only warehouse chain we know as Costco was brought about by the 1993 merger of Price Club and Costco.
Source: Business Insider
Price Club launched in 1976, and Costco opened its doors in 1983.
Source: Business Insider
Back then, shoppers could purchase a Costco membership for $25 or $30 a year.
Source: Business Insider
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