Overview Of William S. Henderson & Co.

The company was founded in the year of 1837 in Quebec Canada by William Henderson.
It is controlled by the Selfridges Group with its chairman W. Galen Weston. William was an Irish born individual who started to run his own store called William Ashton & Co which was later changed to the name of William S. Henderson & Co. The business started out as a small single shop that slowly progressed to bigger retail locations. Henderson later sold his store to his brother John as the name again went into revision in 1862 to John Henderson & Co. A business partner later came into view named George Renfrew as the name changed again to Henderson, Renfrew and Company. In 1882 the company received one of the most prestigious honours, named “Furries in Ordinary”

They currently have around 3,000 suppliers but only purchase from around 1,000 in a year. All of the goods they purchased was shipped to their main distribution center in Mississauga, Ontario which has 80,000 square footage. Around 40 million to 60 million dollars’ worth of inventory is received each month. Around 60 million dollars worth of inventory is received during peak season’s month of March, April, July, August, November and December. This distribution center was originally designed for a flow operation where goods would be immediately shipped to stores. Merchandise was then distributed to the Holt Renfrew stores and any unsold merchandise at the stores would be shipped to the secondary distribution center in Mississauga which is 60,000 square footage which would then ship those goods to Holt Renfrew last call. The main distribution center required 55 hourly full time workers over two shifts. The workers were paid fourteen dollars per hour. The secondary warehouse was leased for $5 per square foot per year and Holt Renfrew paid $2.50 per square foot per year for things such as taxes and insurance. The warehouse had variable costs of $1.50 per square foot per year. This second warehouse had two supervisors with ten hourly