Shoppers Fair was an American discount

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

chain. It was founded in 1956 in Bridgeport, Connecticut and owned by

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

-based Mangel, but primarily operated in the state of

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. The chain closed the last of its stores in 1975.

History

Shoppers Fair was founded in 1956 with a store in Bridgeport, Connecticut. By 1962, the chain was a subsidiary of New York-based Mangel and operated thirty-five stores in twelve states, with nine of those thirty-five being located in Michigan. In 1971, Shoppers Fair reached an agreement with Borman's Inc., owner of the

Yankee Stores Yankee Stores was an American discount department store chain begun in Flint, Michigan. Partners Joseph Megdell and Wilbert Roberts opened their first store in 1948 to sell military surplus under the name U.S. Surplus. By 1964, it had become a disc ...

chain, to acquire eight stores closed by Yankee in the

metro Detroit The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is a major metropolitan area in the U.S. State of Michigan, consisting of the city of Detroit and its surrounding area. There are varied definitions of the area, including the ...

area due to unprofitability. One of the eight, in

Roseville Roseville may refer to: Australia *Roseville, New South Wales Canada * Roseville, Ontario Malta * RoseVille (aka Villa Roseville), a house in Attard, Malta South Africa *Roseville, Pretoria, a suburb United Kingdom *Roseville, Dudley United S ...

, had never opened for business as Yankee. The Shoppers Fair chain was part of two lawsuits: one in 1960 against a department store in Flint, Michigan called The Fair, and another four years later against an owner of an

IGA Iga may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Ambush at Iga Pass, a 1958 Japanese film * Iga no Kagemaru, Japanese manga series * Iga, a set of characters from the Japanese novel ''The Kouga Ninja Scrolls'' Biology * Iga (beetle), ''Iga'' (be ...

store in

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area ...

also called Shoppers Fair. Both cases ruled in the other stores' favors. Mangel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 1974. At the time, the company had 46 Shoppers Fair stores and 94 Mangels clothing stores. By December 1974, all of the Detroit stores were closed, and by 1975, the ten remaining stores in the chain had gone out of business as well.

References

{{Reflist Defunct discount stores of the United States Defunct companies based in New York City Defunct department stores based in Michigan 1956 establishments in Connecticut 1975 disestablishments in Connecticut Retail companies established in 1956 Retail companies disestablished in 1975 American companies established in 1956