Bi-Mart is an employee-owned chain of retailers located in the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. A typical Bi-Mart houses merchandise including electronics and small appliances, housewares, hardware and power tools, sporting and hunting supplies, apparel, canned and packaged food, personal care products, a drugstore and pharmacy. The median size of a Bi-Mart store is 31,000 square feet (2,900Â m2).
The company was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. As of early 2011, there are 75 store locations. Bi-Mart's first store opened in Yakima, Washington in 1955 and did not open a second store until 1962. In 1976, Bi-Mart was bought by Pay 'n Save which itself was acquired by Thrifty Corporation in 1984. It was subsequently merged into the former Kmart subsidiary PayLess Drug, and finally purchased by Rite Aid in 1996.
In 1997, Bi-Mart's management and Endeavour Capital (a Portland-based venture capital firm) bought the company; they sold it to employees March 1, 2004, for $94 million, which included $12.5 million contributed from the 401(k) plan. Bi-Mart is the sole surviving store name of former Pay 'n Save subsidiaries. (Schucks Auto Supply retained its name until acquired by O'Reilly Automotive, Inc. and rebranded in 2010.)
In October 2003, Bi-Mart announced it was expanding eastward. Eight stores were planned with the first store in Havre, Montana. The second store opened three years later in Weiser, Idaho. In 2006, Bi-Mart exited the Montana market due to poor sales.
Like Costco and Sam's Club, Bi-Mart stores are membership stores; unlike those chains, its members-only policy started as a workaround to fair trade laws established in the United States in the 1930s by laws such as the Miller-Tydings Act and those related to suggested retail prices. Thus, the membership for an entire family only costs $5 and never expires.
References
External links
- Official website
- Smaller and steady win the race, a December 2004 article from The Oregonian
