Do you know your store names and what they mean?
Asda, Tesco and Ikea all stand for something. Do you know what?
MANY of the everyday stores in retail parks and on the high street are household names.
Asda, Tesco, Ikea and H&M need little introduction or explanation as to what they sell.
However, do you know what their names actually stand for?
Here is a run down of a few of the better known ones.
Tesco - T E Skockwell and Jack Cohen
Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen as a group of market stalls. The Tesco name first appeared in 1924, after Cohen purchased a shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and combined those initials with the first two letters of his surname, and the first Tesco store opened in 1931 in Burnt Oak, Barnet. His business expanded rapidly and by 1939 he had over 100 Tesco stores across the country.
Asda - Associated Daries
Asda has its headquarters in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
The company was founded in 1965 when the supermarket owning Asquith family merged with the Associated Dairies company of Yorkshire. It expanded in to the south of England during the 1970s and 1980s. It became a subsidiary of the American retail corporate giant Walmart after a £6.7 billion takeover in July 1999.
asos - As Seen On Screen
The global fashion brand and online megastore started life in 1999 as a supplier of unbranded clothes to celebrities on TV and the idea was people could find clothes and accessories they had seen celebs wearing.
Before long people started referring to AsSeenOnScreen as ASOS and in late 2000 the domain name www.asos. com was bought.
B&M - Billington and Mayman
Bargains and More would really suffice but it actually stands for Billington & Mayman as it was set up by Malcolm Billington but shortened to B&M for Bargain Madness.
Set up in 1978 - Billington remained the company director until 1996.
B&Q - Block & Quayle Block & Quayle actually sound a like a deep house duo who will do a 6-hour b2b set in room 2 at The Warehouse Project.
Richard Block and David Quayle are the founders of B&Q. Their joint business venture began after they purchased and fitted out a former furniture warehouse in a Southampton suburb. The duo soon shortened the brand to B&Q as stock delivery notes and invoices were already unofficially abbreviating the name. mens and August Brenninkmeijer in 1841 as a Dutch textile company before moving into clothes in the 1900s.
H&M - Hennes & Mauritz
H&M is Swedish and was founded all the way back in 1947, although back then it was just known as Hennes.
Originally the store sold exclusively women’s clothing but when hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss was acquired, menswear was also included. The first UK store opened in London in 1976 - this was also the first store to be built outside of Scandinavia.
HSBC - The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
Houses, Shoes, Boats and Cars are just some of the things you can buy if you take out a giant loan at HSBC but sadly that is not what it stands for.
HSBC was actually founded by a Scotsman called Sir Thomas Sutherland in Hong Kong in 1865.
Back then Hong Kong was still a British colony. HSBC benefited from the start of trading into China.
It wasn’t until the millennium that HSBC expanded into continental Europe after the acquisition of Credit Comercial de France. the UK in the 80s.
The Elmtaryd in IKEA is the farm where Kamprad grew up and the A stands for his hometown of Agunnaryd.
Lego - Leg Godt Lego is a Danish company which gets its name from the Danish saying ‘leg godt’ which translates to ‘play well’’ in English - which would make it a portmanteau really, rather than an acronym and initialism.
Carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen birthed The Lego Group in his workshop in 1932.
In 1934 it became known simply as ‘Lego’. Lego toys were originally wooden but production of plastic toys began in 1947.
The modern Lego brick design was patented in January 1958. Lego is currently Brand Finance’s “world’s most powerful brand”.
Odeon - Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation
Hinckley did have an Odeon Cinema for many years in The Borough. It opened in 1913 and closed in 1961.
The first Odeon cinema was opened by Oscar Deutsch in 1928, in Brierley, Staffordshire.
QVC - Quality Value Convenience
Probably the easiest to guess as it sums up the service the shopping IKEA - Ingvar Kamchannel provides. prad Elmtaryd AgunAlthough it can be naryd argued that in 2017 the C&A - Clemens and Set up in 1943 by a internet is much more August 17-year-old Ingvar Kamconvenient than having to
C&A arguably has a repprad in Almhult, Sweden observe a TV channel utation for being Cheap as a mostly mail-order waiting for a deal to pop up.andAwfulbutC&Astillsalesbusiness. has many retail stores in It was not until after the QVC was set up by Europe despite there Second World War that it Joseph Segel in Pennsylvabeing none left in the UK began to sell furniture. nia in 1986 and it now anymore after the last The first physical store broadcasts to over 350 closed in 2001. opened in Almhult in 1958 million households in
The company was before expanding to seven countries across the founded by brothers Cle- Europe in the 1970s and globe.