Selfridges

Selfridges is a chain of department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by American entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge who opened a large store in London's Oxford Street on 15 March 1909. Selfridges is credited with coining the phrase "The customer is always right", by using extensive advertising. Instead of keeping products behind counters, Selfridges decided to place them on displays that were more accessible to customers. Such changes were soon adopted by other retailers.

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In 1909, after the first cross-Channel flight, Louis Bl?riot's monoplane was exhibited at Selfridges, where it was seen by 12,000 people. The first public demonstration of television was by John Logie Baird from the first floor of Selfridges from 1 April-27 April 1925.

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For almost 90 years, Selfridges was a one-location business, but in 1998 it opened its first store outside London, at the Trafford Centre, on the outskirts of Manchester. By the end of 2003, Selfridges had four stores: two in Manchester and (the latest) one in Birmingham's Bullring shopping complex which opened in September 2003. The Birmingham store is covered in 15,000 spun aluminium discs and was designed by architects Future Systems. A further store is scheduled to open in Glasgow in 2007.

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Department store: A department store is a retail establishment engaged in retailing a wide range of products without a single predominant merchandise line. Department stores usually sell products including apparel, furniture, appliances, and additionally select other lines of products such as paint, hardware, toiletr...

American: :This page disambiguates the many uses of American. For an article about those various uses, please see Use of the word American....

Entrepreneur: Entrepreneur is a loanword from the French language that refers to a person who undertakes and operates a new venture, and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks....