Harrods
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 51°29′58.51″N 00°09′48.66″W
 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Genre | Department Store |
| Founded | 1834 |
| Founder(s) | Charles Henry Harrod |
| Headquarters | Brompton Road Knightsbridge, London,England |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Quality & luxury goods |
| Owner(s) | Mohamed Al-Fayed |
| Employees | 5000+ |
| Parent | Harrods |
| Website | www.harrods.com |
Harrods is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air Harrods.
The store occupies a 4.5-acre (18,000 m2) site and has over one million square feet (90,000 m2) of selling space in over 330 departments. This makes Harrods one of the largest department stores in the world together with Macy's New York (the UK's second-biggest shop, Oxford Street's Selfridges is a little over half the size with 540,000-square-foot (50,000 m2)[1] of selling space).
The Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique — All Things for All People, Everywhere. Several of its departments, including the seasonal Christmas department and the Food Hall are world famous.
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[edit]Background
Harrods was established in 1834 in London’s East End, when founder Charles Henry Harrod set up a wholesale grocery in Stepney,[2]with a special interest in tea. In 1849, to escape the filth of the inner city and to capitalise on trade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Knightsbridge, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod’s son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruit, and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1880.
However, the store’s booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground.[2] Remarkably, in view of this calamity, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year — and made a record profit in the process. In short order, a new building was raised on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers, among them Oscar Wilde, legendary actresses Lillie Langtry and Ellen Terry, Noël Coward, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British Royal Family.
In 1898, Harrods installed the world's first moving staircase (escalator); nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods
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