Company type |
|
---|---|
Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1977 |
Founder | Jack Shin |
Fate | Acquired by Ritz Camera, becoming a brand of Ritz |
Headquarters |
|
Area served | North America |
Camera World was a retailer of photographic equipment and photofinishing services based in Portland, Oregon, United States, and founded in 1977. It was an independent company until 2002, and then from 2002 to 2016 it was a brand of Ritz Camera & Image or C&A Marketing. In the mid-1990s, it was one of the largest mail-order retailers of photographic and audio equipment in the nation.[1] The company's revenues totalled $80 million in 1998, of which $16 million were from online sales.[2] Revenues grew to $115.7 million in 1999 (equivalent to $211.6 million in 2023[3]), and the company relocated its administrative offices and inventory to a new facility in Beaverton, Oregon, the following year.[4] The company's only brick-and-mortar store, in downtown Portland, as well as its Internet business were sold in 2002 to Ritz Camera, which continued to operate them under the Camera World name. Ritz, in turn, was acquired by C&A Marketing in 2012, but retained the Camera World name as a Ritz brand, for both the store and the Internet business, until closure of the store. The store closed on January 21, 2016.[5]