- Belk
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For places in Poland, see Bełk (disambiguation).
Belk 
Type Private Industry Retail Founded 1888 (Monroe, North Carolina, USA) Headquarters Charlotte, North Carolina, USA Number of locations 305 (January 2011)[1] Products Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. Website www.belk.com 
Belk is a department store chain founded in 1888 in Monroe, North Carolina, today part of the Charlotte metropolitan area. After the founding of the first Belk store, the company grew in size and influence throughout the South via the chain in the USA,[2] with its stores primarily located in the Southern USA.
The chain has four flagship locations:
- SouthPark Mall, in Charlotte, North Carolina, houses the chain's largest store, with more than 330,000 square feet (31,000 m2). The store was built in 1970 as one of the mall's original anchor stores. The mall was co-developed by the Belk and Ivey families.
- Crabtree Valley Mall. in Raleigh, North Carolina, is where Belk built a similarly elaborate 251,000-square-foot (23,300 m2) store in 1972 (subsequently expanded to 320,000 square feet (30,000 m2) in 2007) in North Carolina's high-tech Research Triangle.
- The Summit, in Birmingham, Alabama, houses the third flagship, built in 1997, which opened as a Parisian store and one of the lifestyle center's original anchors. Its intended conversion to a Belk flagship was officially announced on April 25, 2007, with the reorganization complete by September 2007.
- Phipps Plaza, in Atlanta, Georgia, contains the fourth flagship, which also opened as Parisian, part of a 1992 expansion of the mall in which the store became the third mall anchor. Like the store at The Summit, it converted to a Belk by September 2007, although its conversion to flagship wasn't officially announced until November 2, 2007.
Contents
History
Former Belk logo used from 1967 to 2010. The "All for you!" slogan was used from the late 1990s onward.
Founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk, the store was first called "New York Racket" and then "Belk Brothers," after Belk made his brother, Dr. John Belk, a physician, as his partner.
By 1908, the company had moved its headquarters to Charlotte and built a giant flagship store on Trade and Tryon Streets in downtown Charlotte. That store was closed in 1988 to make way for what is now Bank of America Corporate Center and the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.
The business grew steadily, relying on "bargain sales" and advertising to grow the business. Today, the chain is still family-owned and currently has 306 stores in 19 states, particularly in the Carolinas,[3] along with the Atlanta and Birmingham metro areas. The Atlanta area now has the largest concentration of Belk stores in any of its markets. The westernmost Belk stores are located in Waco, Texas and Stillwater, Oklahoma; while the northermost Belk is located in Westminster, Maryland and the southernmost Belk store is in Fort Myers, Florida. In 2006, Belk generated US$2.97 billion in sales and employed 17,900 people.
During the fourth quarter of 2005, Belk completed the sale of their private label credit card division, Belk National Bank, to GE MoneyBank. Consumers were issued new Belk credit cards replacing the old ones issued by BNB. All new Belk cards are now issued by GE Money Bank.[3]
On July 5, 2005, Belk completed the purchase of 47 Proffitt's and McRae's department stores from Saks Incorporated. Belk converted the 39 Proffitt's and McRae's stores to the Belk nameplate on March 8, 2006.[4] Just over a year later, Belk purchased 38 Parisian department stores from Saks on October 2, 2006. Although most Parisian stores were converted to the Belk nameplate since September 12, 2007, some Parisian stores were closed in cases of duplicate stores in developments, such as the Parisian locations at The Mall at Barnes Crossing in Tupelo, Mississippi, Richland Mall in Columbia, South Carolina, and at Citadel Mall in Charleston, South Carolina. Four stores in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, plus a store under construction at the time in Michigan, were sold by Belk to The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. Belk additionally traded its newly acquired Parisian location in Collierville, Tennessee, with Macy's, Inc. for a Macy's (former Hecht's) in Wilmington, North Carolina, during the second quarter of 2007.[5][6]
Belk also now operates a store in the popular Branson Landing district in Branson, Missouri.[7]
Even as Belk has made its recent acquisitions, the chain has operated limited electronic commerce on its website, and those websites acquired and redirected to Belk.com. Home furnishings such as bedding, small kitchen appliances, crystal, dinnerware, and china have been offered for several years to online shoppers, as a part of the chain's online bridal and gift registry. The chain revamped their website and registry on September 15, 2008. Celebrity-branded product lines are another pursuit, including a partnership with actress Kristin Davis for a ladies' apparel and accessories collection which debuted in fall 2008 in 125 store locations and online. However, that product line was discontinued in late 2009. [8]
On October 3, 2010, the News & Observer reported Belk planned to update its logo.[9] On October 12 at SouthPark Mall, Belk officially introduced the new logo, the first since 1967. The chain plans a $70 million marketing campaign that includes the slogan "Modern. Southern. Style." Sixty stores will get new signs in the first phase, and the remainder will get new signs in 2011.[10] Advertisements for Belk & Co. jewelry continue to use a variation of the old logo.
Partnership names
Beginning in 1921 with the Leggett Bros. stores of South Boston, Virginia, the Belk family formed various partnerships with other merchandisers in different markets. (This complex story is chronicled in a book[11] about the evolution of the company.) This unusual corporate ownership structure resulted in dual or hyphened names on many of their stores. In 1998, Belk bought out or merged away this partnership structure and formed Belk, Inc. from its 112 existing Belk companies, with certain well-established partnership names, such as Hudson Belk, used in the Triangle region of North Carolina that remained in place until Belk's logo change in the fall of 2010.
References
- ^ Belk FY 2011 Annual Report
- ^ Belk, Inc. - Company Profile
- ^ a b Belk Official Website
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ N.C. town lands Collierville's Parisian
- ^ Macy's store listing in metropolitan Memphis area (38103), accessed on May 17, 2007
- ^ "Store Details". Belk.com. http://www.belk.com/store/store_details.jsp?storeid=1%2C408%2C474%2C395%2C187%2C847&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302040863&bmUID=1274890603499. Retrieved 2011-03-02.
- ^ [2][dead link]
- ^ "NC-based Belk department stores get new logo". The Charlotte Observer. 2010-10-03. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/03/1736520/nc-based-belk-department-stores.html. Retrieved 2010-10-15.[dead link]
- ^ Valle, Kirsten (2010-10-12). "Belk unveils its new logo at SouthPark". The Charlotte Observer. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/12/1757292/belk-unveils-new-logo-at-southpark.html. Retrieved 2010-10-13.
- ^ Belk, Inc.-- The Company and the Family That Built It
External links
Categories:- Department stores of the United States
- Privately held companies based in North Carolina
- Companies based in Charlotte, North Carolina
- Companies established in 1888
- Family businesses
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