AJ Wright - Fashion Company Profile
AJ Wright was TJX's moderate-income off-price chain, launched in 1998 with the deepest discounts in the family - and the family's shortest life: TJX converted or closed every store in early 2011.
Company Snapshot
- Status
- Closed - TJX wound the chain up in early 2011: 91 stores were converted to T.J. Maxx, Marshalls or HomeGoods and 71 were closed
- Type
- Was a division of The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TJX)
- Headquarters
- Framingham, Massachusetts, United States
- Founded
- September 20, 1998, by TJX, as its moderate-income off-price chain
Company Profile
AJ Wright no longer operates, so this page carries no shop box and no official-site button; the successor link in the disclaimer leads to TJX, the parent that folded the chain into its bigger banners. The profile is kept as the record of the experiment - 129 stores at its 2006 high-water mark, prices 20 to 70 percent below discount chains, and a long-term plan, stated in its own filing, for a thousand stores that were never built.
At year-end 2006, A.J. Wright operated 129 stores averaging approximately 26,000 square feet. The filing's confidence was expansive: five new stores planned for 2007, and a long-term belief that 'the U.S. could potentially support approximately 1,000 stores.' Within the TJX family it was the experiment in how far down the income ladder the off-price model could reach - refreshing its merchandise, in its own early description, with new shipments every weekday.
Launched 1998, Wound Up 2011
The thousand-store future never arrived. In December 2010 TJX announced it would consolidate A.J. Wright out of existence: 91 of its stores were converted into T.J. Maxx, Marshalls or HomeGoods stores, and the remaining 71 were closed, along with its two distribution centers and home office, cutting about 4,400 jobs. The last stores closed in early February 2011. TJX's reasoning was that it had learned to serve the A.J. Wright customer through its larger banners.
This profile is therefore a historical record, and its disclaimer points to the parent that absorbed it: TJX, whose surviving chains - several of them profiled in this same letter - are where A.J. Wright's customers were sent. Nothing of the chain trades today; the name survives mainly in the converted storefronts' first leases.
Common Questions
When did AJ Wright close?
In early 2011. TJX announced the consolidation in December 2010: 91 A.J. Wright stores were converted to T.J. Maxx, Marshalls or HomeGoods, 71 were closed outright, and the chain's home office and distribution centers shut, with final closures in February 2011.
Who owned AJ Wright?
The TJX Companies, Inc., which launched the chain on September 20, 1998, as its moderate-income off-price format, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts.
How was AJ Wright different from TJ Maxx?
Price and customer: A.J. Wright targeted moderate-income families with prices 20-70% below national discount chains - a deeper ladder than TJ Maxx's 20-60% below department store prices - and refreshed merchandise with shipments every weekday.
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