| Type | Private/Employee owned |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1955 Yakima, Washington |
| Headquarters | Eugene, Oregon |
| Products | clothing, footwear, housewares, sporting goods, hardware, toys electronics, foods, pharmacy, beer, seasonal goods |
| Website | http://www.bimart.com/ |
Bi-Mart is an employee-owned chain of retailers located in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho in the United States.[1] The company describes itself as taking a "deep discount" approach to merchandising brand name goods, striving to offer a wide selection of top quality merchandise at low everyday prices". A typical Bi-Mart houses a wide selection of 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. An average Bi-Mart is approximately 31,000 square feet,[2] a fraction of the typical 107,000 square foot WalMart[3] that offers similar product diversity but greater depth.
The company was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. As of early 2011, there are 72 store locations.[4] Bi-Mart's first store opened in Yakima, Washington in 1955 and did not open its second store until 1962. In 1976, Bi-Mart was bought by Pay 'n Save which itself was acquired by Thrifty Corporation in 1984, 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;[5] they sold it to its employees March 1, 2004 for $94 million, which included $12.5 million contributed from their 401(k) plan. Bi-Mart is the sole surviving store name of former Pay 'n Save subsidiaries (Schucks Auto Parts retained its name until acquired by OReilly 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.
As of December 2004, the company projects sales for the fiscal year ending February 28, 2005 of $650 million, compared with $621 million for the previous year.
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.[1]
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