Turn Style

Infobox_Company
company_name = Turn Style Department Stores Inc.
company_
company_type = discount department store
foundation = 1961 [ Discount Merchandiser July 1986, lists 4-stores in 1961 ]
location = Brighton, MA, United States
industry = Retail
products = Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics and housewares.
homepage = None

Turn Style was a chain of discount department stores and was a division of Chicago-based Jewel, the parent company of the Jewel Food Stores supermarket chain. Each Turn Style had an Osco Pharmacy, at the time very uncommon for a discount store in the 1960s and 1970s. [ [http://www.wtv-zone.com/dpjohnson/60sdiscountstores/index.html] 1960s version of Turn Style references.]

History

Jewel acquired the Turn Style brand in 1961 and began rapidly expanding the chain. Sales for the 1961 year were listed as $14 million U.S. dollars with four stores, with headquarters in Brighton, Massachusetts. [ Discount Merchandiser magazine, July 1986 issue ] At its peak, the chain operated throughout the Midwest, as well as in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Within three years of opening the first Chicagoland store in Racine, Wisconsin, profits as measured on a ROI basis were the highest within Jewel Companies. Rapid expansion, the unfortunate corporate decision to incorporate a catalog type store within its four walls, and an unrealistic divisive venture into the "Hypermarket" business, all caused profits to suffer.

The economy also caused Jewel to rethink its growth strategy and the decision was made to sell Turn Style in order to concentrate its growth within its core businesses, which were food stores and drugstores. In 1978 the stores were sold to May Department Stores and converted to the Venture format. Other stores were converted to large Osco Drug Stores. Turn Style was considered a "cut above" mass merchant and its reputation in the marketplace was comparable to that of Target.

References