DixonsDixons was an electrical retailer that grew to become one of the largest in the market, its one time dominance of the High Street grew from one small store in Southend-on-Sea. Charles Kalms & Michael Mindel opened a small photographic studio in a shop off Southend High Street under the name of Dixons Studios Limited, this was in no way linked to the Southend department store Dixons who operated from a much larget store a few doors down. The Dixons Studios Limited Company was officially registered in October 1937, by the early 1940’s seven more studios had been set up, however by the time the war had ended only one studio was still open in Edgware. The company started selling cameras in 1950, and quickly grew in 1957 it opened a new buying centre to cope with the 60,000+ orders it was receiving along with opening six stores. The name was changed in 1962 to Dixons Photographic Limited, at the same time it bought the Ascotts photography chain followed by Bennetts, in 1964 and Wallace Heaton in 1972. Dixons moved in to home computers in 1993 when it bought the Vision Technology Group who operated the PC World chain of shops. The first Tax Free store opened at Heathrow in 1994, the same year it launched The Link brand, they also bought DN Computer Services and Irish retailer Harry Moore Ltd. Cellnet bought a 40% share of The Link in 1997 the same year saw the launch of the Dixons website. With the increasing demand of the internet Dixons launched the Freeserve internet service provider which was later sold to France Telecom and renamed Wanadoo. A series of companies were rapidly bought up by the Dixons group including, Elkjøp ASA (Nordic) in 1999, UniEuro (Italian) in 2002 & Genesis Communications in 2002. The Dixons group launched Electro World in Hungary eventually 9 stores would be opened. Expansion in to Russia & the Ukraine in 2005 followed when Dixons bought the an interest in Eldorado Group. Then in 2006 the name Dixons that had emblazoned countless stores across the country was lost from the stores, as a major rebranding of the company took place, the shops retailing under the Dixons name were all rebranded Currys.digital however the Dixons name carried on as a pure on line retailer. Since the name diapered from the High Street the company have bought a controlling shore in Fotovista, a French photographic business, stopped selling analogue TV’s with the digital switch over there was no demand for the old sets so many were sold off cheap. In May 2011 the Dixons Group announced that 77 of its 177 Currys.digital shops in the UK would close as their building leases expire over the next five years. |
Classic Dixons Carrier Bag
Saisho at Dixons bag, a brand whoely owned by Dixons launched in 1978, it was later phased out to be replaced by Matsui & Logik.
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