Dillard's History

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The Company Description of Its Time

Dillard's, Inc. is filed in its Apparel Search profile with its scale stated first: it ranks among the nation's largest fashion apparel and home furnishings retailers, with annual revenues exceeding $7.7 billion, focusing on delivering maximum fashion and value to its shoppers by offering compelling apparel and home selections complemented by exceptional customer care. Its stores offer a broad selection of merchandise from both national and exclusive brand sources, and the Company operates approximately 330 Dillard's locations spanning 29 states, all with one nameplate - Dillard's - described as the largest nameplate in fashion apparel retailing. Those figures are the filing's, kept as recorded; the history that produced them occupies most of the record, and this page follows it in the founder's own sequence.

Texarkana to the Malls: 1948 to 1969

Aside from a short period during World War II, the company continued operating and expanding its Nashville location. In 1948 Dillard, looking for more growth prospects, sold the Nashville store and used the money, along with some outside financing, to buy controlling interest in a Texarkana (AR, TX) store; his competitive strategy was to offer attractively priced national name brand merchandise along with customer credit, and by 1953 it was the leading store in Texarkana. From Texarkana he expanded to Tyler, Texas in 1956 with the purchase of an existing store, and in early 1960 entered a similar transaction for a Tulsa, Oklahoma store twice the size of the Tyler operation - quick, in each case, to make it profitable and pay down acquisition-related debt, a pattern repeated because it became the company(?:'|')s method.

The department store operator opened his first store in a shopping mall in 1964 in Austin, TX, a decision which proved to have significant implications in the chain's future growth strategy; one of the cornerstones of Dillard's philosophy, the historical record states, is that location is the key to success. Meanwhile the company had established a credit subsidiary, purchased two central Arkansas department store chains, relocated its headquarters to Little Rock, Arkansas, implemented a centralized computer system and realigned its capital structure, using its existing store base as a vehicle for expansion into mall locations. Throughout the late sixties and beyond, this aggressive mall expansion continued. In 1969 Dillard Department Stores, Inc. went public, offering its Class A Common Stock for the first time on May 9.

The Acquisition Decades and the Founder's Legacy

By the early 1970s the chain had moved into Louisiana, Missouri and New Mexico and expanded in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, necessitating a divisional organisation. The dated acquisitions then run: 1974, five stores from Tandy's Leonard's Division, giving a strong foothold in the Dallas/Fort Worth market; 1983, Stix, Baer & Fuller, 12 stores in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas; 1984, two department store divisions purchased from Dayton Hudson, adding stores in Oklahoma, Arizona and Nevada; 1986, 12 stores in the Midwest from R.H. Macy; 1987, 27 units from Joske's and three from Cain-Sloan; 1988, a half interest in 12 Higbee Department Stores in Ohio; 1989, the D.H. Holmes company, 18 units in the south; 1990, the J.B. Ivey chain, 23 stores spanning North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida; 1991, seven Maison Blanche stores in northern and western Florida, the same year the last storewide sales event was eliminated as Dillard's moved to a more balanced pricing approach designed to create loyalty and confidence among customers.

Acquisition activity slowed from 1992 to 1997 as properties became less available, and the company turned to construction, building over 60 stores; in 1997 it purchased ten Mervyn's stores in Florida, seven Proffitt's locations in Virginia and three Macy's stores in Houston. On May 18, 1998 Dillard's announced a tender offer for Mercantile Stores Company, Inc., a chain of 103 traditional stores based near Cincinnati, Ohio - the largest acquisition in the company's history, completed on August 18, after which approximately 75 of the former Mercantile locations were retained following strategic sales and swaps in overlapping markets. On February 8, 2002 William T. Dillard passed away, leaving a legacy of tremendous success in retailing; a major part of the company's marketing philosophy remains based on his sound selling methods, keen attention to day-to-day organisational details, alert selection of personnel and hard work. The routes lead to Dillard(?:'|')s careers, stock market information and news within Apparel Search, and the official Dillard's site in the References carries the present-day store and range information.

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