Traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol JWN, after its namesake John W. Nordstrom, Nordstrom is a high-end retailer that operates stores across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. Its stock price recently jumped after it outperformed analysts’ expectations for the quarter, and the company plans to open its first women-only store in New York City Read more...

Ross Stores is the company behind Ross Dress For Less, a chain of discount department stores headquartered outside the Bay Area, near where the first store opened in 1950 by Morris Ross. Though he sold the store eight years later, the 1,715 U.S. locations still bear his name; so far, the chain in 2019 has performed well compared with other Read more...

Named after Beverly Jean Weich, the daughter of its president Mervyn Weich, BJ’s was established by the defunct discount store chain Zayre in 1984, and now operates stores throughout the East Coast and in Ohio. The smaller of the two members-only discount retailers on this list, BJ’s went public for the second time in the summer of 2018 after previously Read more...

Founded by Donald Fisher and his wife Doris—who named the company after the generation gap—in 1969, Gap Inc. is known for its variety of clothing across six divisions: Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta, Intermix, and Hill City. Over its 50 years of operation, Gap has grown to 135,000 employees located in franchise locations around the world and in February Read more...

Alimentation Couche-Tard operates thousands of convenience stores in the United States under the brands Corner Store, Circle K, Holiday, and Kangaroo Express, with more stores in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Japan, China, and Indonesia. The French name translates as “night-owl food.” Read more...

Bed Bath & Beyond, which operates stores across the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico, was founded in 1971 by Warren Eisenberg and Leonard Feinstein. The publicly traded chain has faced a rough time recently, with shares hitting a 20-year low; according to interim CEO Mary Winston, the company “has not kept pace with how the customer has evolved Read more...

Founded by John Menard Jr. in 1960, Menard Inc. now operates 310 Menards home-improvement stores across the Midwest, making it the third-largest such chain in the United States. In 2018, it ranked #1 in J.D. Power’s survey of customer satisfaction for home-improvement retailers. Read more...

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. operates nearly 1,000 stores across the United States; not bad for a company whose founder’s middle name was “Cash.” James Cash Penney was born in 1875 and founded the department store chain in 1902. In recent years, the corporation has struggled with the rise of Amazon, sudden dismissal of its CEO in 2018, and dated stores. Read more...

L Brands is a fashion retailer known for its flagship brands Victoria’s Secret, specializing in lingerie, and Bath & Body Works, which sells soap and other bath products. The corporation has been run by CEO Leslie “Les” Wexner since its inception in 1963, making him the longest-serving CEO on the Fortune 500. Recently, Wexner’s ties to financier Jeffrey Epstein, who Read more...

Formerly known as Liberty Interactive, Qurate is a media conglomerate that has been run by chairman John C. “Cable Cowboy” Malone since 1998. The corporation is best known for QVC and HSN, television channels that sell products to its viewers. Read more...