- Bi-Mart
Infobox_Company
company_name = Bi-Mart
company_
company_type = discount membership store
foundation = 1955Yakima, Washington
location =Eugene, Oregon
industry =Retail
products = clothing, footwear, housewares, sporting goods, hardware, toys electronics, foods, pharmacy, beer, seasonal goods
homepage = http://www.bimart.com/Bi-Mart is an employee-owned chain of
retailer s located exclusively inOregon ,Washington , andIdaho in the United States. The company was founded in 1955 and is headquartered inEugene, Oregon . The company is currently one of the last two remaining subsidiaries of the defunctPay 'n Save .History
Bi-Mart's first store opened in
Yakima, Washington in 1955 and did not open its second store until 1962. In 1976, it was bought byPay 'n Save , and beginning in 1984, Bi-Mart's corporate parent was bought by Thrifty Corporation, which itself was merged into the formerKmart subsidiary PayLess Drug, culminating with the 1996 purchase byRite Aid .In 1997, Bi-Mart's senior management and a Portland-based
venture capital firm bought the company; they sold it to its employees as of March 1, 2004 for $94 million, which included $12.5 million contributed from their401(k) plan.In October 2003, Bi-Mart announced it was heading east and opening stores in
Montana andIdaho . They planned 8 stores and the first store opened inHavre, Montana . The second store opened 3 years later inWeiser, Idaho .As of December 2004, the company projects sales for the fiscal year ending
February 28 ,2005 of $650 million, compared with $621 million for the previous year.In 2006, Bi-Mart exited the
Montana market after poor sales.Membership store
Like
Costco andSam's Club , Bi-Mart stores are membership stores; unlike those chains, its members-only policy started as a work-around tofair trade laws established in theUnited States in the 1930s by laws such as theMiller-Tydings Act and those related tosuggested retail price s. The membership fee is much lower than other membership stores: $5 buys you a lifetime membership.Lucky Number Tuesday
One of the special features of a Bi-Mart membership is that you are eligible to win on their Lucky Number Tuesdays. Each store chooses approximately 50 card numbers from among their own store's membership numbers to win a variety of prizes, from the "Big Prize" (up to $300 value; only one of these is chosen) to the small prize in which only the last number of your 6 or 7 digit Bi-Mart number must match (small prizes such as a box of tissues, a jar of honey, etc.).
External links
* [http://www.bimart.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/110328827295300.xml Smaller and steady win the race] , a December 2004 article from "The Oregonian "References
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