Happy Birthday: Kmart, Target, Walmart all turn 50

Discounting wasn't invented in 1962, but it might as well have been. That was when Walmart, Target and Kmart were born, each with their distinctive style of low-price retailing. As the three celebrate their 50th anniversaries this year, they can take credit for much of the way bargain-obsessed America now shops. Retailers of every stripe have followed their lead, making shopping the equivalent of "Blue Light Specials" all the time. There were plenty of stand-alone or regional "five-and-ten" or "dime stores" back then, including Woolworth's, Ben Franklin and W.T. Grant. Kmart, Walmart and Target built on the concept and brought self-service, low-price shopping to the masses. "For the first time ... there were long aisles of merchandise, merchandise was well assorted, and the customers helped themselves," says Walter Loeb, a retail consultant and former analyst who spent 20 years as an executive for May Co. and Macy's. "People looked for bargains, and that feeling of bargains never left