Calendar Club

During the holiday season, Calendar Holdings (aka Calendar Club) transforms empty retail space into shops under the banners Go! Calendar, Go! Games, and Go! Toys. The company's temporary stores range in size from kiosks to some 6,000 sq. ft. Founded in 1993 with about 60 stores, Calendar Club now operates more than 1,200 locations in the US. The company also sells merchandise year-round on its websites, including Calendars.com and DogBreedStore.com. Bookseller Barnes & Noble sold its majority stake in Calendar Club to CEO Marc Winkelman and the firm's management in 2009 for $7 million.

With retailers taking a hit during the economic downturn in the US, companies like Calendar Club -- with its temporary business model -- are benefitting from the surge in empty units. Landlords also are relying on temporary retailers to be some of their better tenants because their selling seasons are well-defined and because they tend to communicate more often about their efforts than their permanent retailing counterparts.

The company has also benefitted from consolidation among national bookstore chains -- a primary rival for calendar sales. In 2010 Calendar Club sold San Francisco Music Box Company to Kansas-based Online Holding Co. for an undisclosed amount. This allowed it the opportunity to buy some assets from the now-bankrupt Borders. In 2011 Calendar Club bought Day by Day Calendar Co. from Borders, a key competitor in the seasonal calendar business. Day by Day added about 420 new locations to Calendar Club's operations.