How Top 50 were ranked

Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 7/16/2001 12:00:00 AM

Home Textiles Today's exclusive survey of the Top 50 home textiles retailers ranks the top U. S. retailers by sales of 2000 home textiles. All home textiles categories, bed, bath, kitchen, table linen and window coverings, including alternative window coverings and accessories that are generally sold with textile items, are included in the revenue estimates.

The ranking crosses all formats of home textiles retailing, including discounters; specialty stores; department stores; national chains, such as Sears and Wards; nonstore retailers, such as catalogs; warehouse clubs; military exchanges; and supercenters, which sell both food and general merchandise in their mix.

Discounters include full-line, general merchandise discounts stores, such as Wal-Mart, as well as those such as Family Dollar and Stein Mart that carry a more narrow range of product.

For Wal-Mart and Kmart, the ranking includes discount store divisions. Both companies count supercenters as part of those divisions.

Specialty stores are those retailers whose total business, or single largest merchandise classification, is home textiles, such as Linens 'N Things and Bed Bath & Beyond.

All home textiles sales information, except for publicly held companies that break out line-of-business sales for home textiles, are Home Textiles Today market research estimates. Sales figures are given for the 12-month period ending closest to December 31, 2000. Individual retailer descriptions include the date of the fiscal year-end or the 12-month periods that deviate significantly from that date.

Sales estimates are based on information from a variety of sources such as public company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, discussions with industry analysts and suppliers and published and unpublished reports, including newspaper articles in various retail trading areas.