began to sell selected Hit or Miss items through mail-order catalogs. Hit or Miss and Chadwick's crossover operations allowed customers to handle products before ordering, and brought frequent buyers the convenience of home shopping. By the mid-1980s, off-price specialty retailing had become important to Zayre Corp. Hit or Miss and T.J. Maxx had brought in just 14 percent of the company's operating income in 1980; by the first half of 1983 these operations were producing nearly 45 percent of its income. At the same time, however, Zayre was renovating its discount department stores and expanding its product mix. In 1984, Zayre Corp. introduced a new warehouse retail concept to the Northeast called BJ's Wholesale Club. The self-service, cash-and-carry, membership warehouse sells general merchandise and food at wholesale prices. The following year, the company acquired Home Club, Inc., a chain of home improvement stores. While neither of these ventures was immediately profitable, Hit or Miss and T.J. Maxx continued to thrive. In 1985, Zayre Corp. purchased the former Gaylord's store chain. However, many of the new Zayre stores opened during the 1980s suffered from cluttered aisles and messy appearances. Zayre began to feature appearances from celebrities such as Sherman Hemsley and Robert Guillaume in "Grand Re-openings" of their major stores, but even these events failed to improve their market share. By 1986, the number of Hit or Miss stores in the United States had reached 420, and sales had climbed to $300 million. Some 70 percent of its inventory was made up of nationally known brands. The remaining 30 percent consisted of standard apparel, produced by Hit or Miss under its own private label. With such a merchandise mix, Hit or Miss was able to sell current fashions at 20 to 50 percent less than most specialty stores. In 1986, profits of the Zayre chain, targeting low- to middle-income customers, dropped, although T.J. Maxx, Hit or Miss, and Chadwick's of Boston, targeting mid- to higher-income customers, continued to grow. That year alone, Zayre Corp. opened 35 more T.J. Maxx stores and 31 new Hit or Miss stores. Zayre Corp.'s off-price retailing chains had become so successful that by 1987 Zayre thought it prudent to organize them under one name and grant them autonomy from the decreasingly prosperous parent company. In June 1987, just ten years after T.J. Maxx opened its first store, The TJX Companies, Inc. was established as a subsidiary