TJX Leads In Off Price Clothing And Home Products Retail

TJX Companies Inc is the worlds largest off-price apparel and home fashions store chain. It retails its products under some of the most recognized international brand names like T J Maxx, HomeGoods, Bobs Stores, Winners and HomeSense. It is ranked at 133 in the list of the most recent Fortune 500 companies

TJX retails clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products and housewares at prices that are 20-60% less than the regular prices at department and specialty stores. In the United States the company retails from stores like T.J.Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and A.J.Wright. While the latter is oriented towards a more moderate income market, Bobs Stores is a value-oriented, casual clothing and footwear superstore in the Northeastern US which targets customers in the moderate to upper-middle income range.

In 1990 TJX launched its operations outside the country when it bought the five-store Winners chain in Canada. In 2001, HomeSense was launched in the same country which was modeled after the HomeGoods concept of the US. While Winners operates 184 stores, HomeGoods has a network of 68 stores and between them the stores offer a vast range of family apparel, giftware, home fashions, lingerie, footwear, jewelry and accessories.

In 1994 TJX expanded beyond the North American continent when it opened its fourth brand division T.K.Maxx in United Kingdoms and then in Ireland. This division was modeled after T.J.Maxx of U.S and by the end of 2006, it operated 210 stores in U.K and Ireland. With stores of an average of 30000 square feet in size T.K.Maxx offers great value on branded family apparel, lingerie, womens footwear, homeware products and accessories. Currently it is the only major off-price retail store operating in any European market.

The history of the company goes back to the Zayre discount department store chain which was founded in 1956. In 1976 it opened the first branch of T.J.Maxx but in 1988 Zayre sold its own nameplate to Ames. The remaining part of the original company was renamed as TJX Companies Incorporated. Today, the company has a network of 2400 stores and eight businesses all over the world. At the end of 2006, its revenues totaled $17 billion USD and it employed around 125000 people. The headquarters of the company are located at Framington in Massachusetts.

In January 2007, TJX reported an unauthorized computer systems intrusion. It was found out that in December previous year, hackers had accessed a system that stored data from the customers credit cards, debit cards, checks and merchandise return transactions. In March 2007, it was estimated that as a result of this intrusion, around 45.7 million customers have been affected. Currently the company is in consultations with General Dynamics and IBM to upgrade its computer security. Tjx