is a membership-only warehouse club chain operating on the United States East Coast, as well as in the state of Ohio.[2] The company is also ranked 287 on Fortune magazine's 2007 listing of America's 500 largest public corporations.[3]
The company was started by Zayre, a discount department store chain, in 1984, on the Medford/Malden border in Massachusetts. This was and still is the company's flagship store.
When Zayre sold their own nameplate to rival discount chain Ames, TJX Companies was formed. TJX spun off their warehouse division, consisting of BJ's and now defunct HomeClub (later known as HomeBase, then House2Home), to form Waban, Inc. Later, Waban spun off BJ's to become an independent company headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts.
The letters B and J stand for Beverly Jean, a daughter of one of the founders. They are commonly misinterpreted to stand for Berkley & Jensen, a brand name sold in their stores.
As of April 2008, BJ's operates 178 BJ's clubs in 16 states and employs over 28,000 Team Members (both full and part-time). Its major competitors are Costco and Sams Club.[4]
BJ's offers a variety of special benefits to its members. These include member pricing, a variety of name-brand products at discount wholesale prices, acceptance of all valid manufacturers' coupons, and acceptance of many forms of payment (cash, check, ATM/debit cards, and all major credit cards). Some clubs also accept food stamps. BJ's is the only one of the three major warehouse club chains to regularly accept Visa as a method of payment....