Lechmere

Lechmere, Inc.

Industry	Retail
Fate	Liquidation
Founded	Boston, Massachusetts (1913), later Woburn, Massachusetts
Defunct	1997
Headquarters	New England
Products	Electronics, housewares, appliances, exercise equipment, footwear and music

Lechmere (/ˈliːtʃmɪər/; sometimes described as Lechmere's) was a New England retail store that closed in 1997. It had 24 stores located throughout New England and New York, offering electronics and appliances.

History

The chain began in 1913 when Abraham "Pop" Cohen opened a harness shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When his three sons Maurice, Philip and Norman and daughter Nan entered the business in the 1940s, it evolved into a tire and automotive store and later into a consumer appliance store. Household goods, televisions, and other goods were added to the merchandising mix in the 1950s, as were luggage, sporting goods, toys, and lawn and garden accessories. The first store moved to a former bus garage on 88 First Street in 1956, furthering the expansion of merchandise mix. Lechmere also began advertising on television in the 1950s, and ended all of its prices in 88 to represent the store's address.^[1]

The First Street building was expanded in 1962 to a 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²) store, to which office equipment, jewelry,hardware and further goods were added. A second store later opened in 1965 in Dedham. In order to capitalize further growth, the Cohens sold the chain to Dayton's, a department store based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that later became Target Corp. Dayton maintained Lechmere as a separate subsidiary, and opened stores in Danvers and Springfield.^[1]

As the Cohens withdrew control of the chain, its merchandise mix changed to a discount department store line. Due to declining sales, the chain began cutting prices as well. Stores in Framingham and Manchester, New Hampshire followed in 1977.^[1]

Lechmere introduced many retailing innovations, including discount pricing and a central pick-up counter to make shopping easier for customers. Merchandising strategy included offering items at many different price points to offer something for every customer and prices on major appliances listed in code so that customers would have to talk to a sales person to find out the cost. Every year on Washington's Birthday they had a big sale, which featured 22-cent cherry pies to draw customers.^[2] Despite the opening of new stores, Lechmere's sales continued to decline, until when C. George Scala was named CEO in 1980.^[3] He changed the merchandise mix again to housewares, appliances, sporting goods, electronics, and music.

Berkshire Partners and Boston-based mall developers Steve Karp and Steve Wiener, bought the chain from Dayton Hudson in 1989.^[4] As a condition of this sale, stores in the Southeastern United States were closed.^[5] In 1992, the company successfully went to the Supreme Court to block union organizers from being on their property in Lechmere, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board. Berkshire Partners sold Lechmere to Montgomery Ward Holdings in 1994, in a more than $200 million deal.^[6]

Closure

On August 1, 1997, Montgomery Ward announced that all Lechmere stores were to be closed as part of their bankruptcy reorganization. At the time of the chain's closing, 27 stores remained open, including 20 in New England, 12 of which were in Massachusetts. All six HomeImage by Lechmere were also closed at that time.^[7] November 7, 1997 was the last day of business for all locations,^[8] and all remaining items, which had been increasingly discounted, were offered at 90% off.

Legacy

The original store and the nearby Green Line station got their names from their locations in Lechmere Square.

References