Little Switzerland

Company History:
Little Switzerland, Inc. is a specialty retailer of luxury items that operates 20 retail stores in the Caribbean, Alaska, and Florida. The company's stores, most of which are duty-free units located in the Caribbean, sell jewelry, watches, china and crystal, fragrances, and other accessories. Little Switzerland carries such well-known brand names as Rolex, Baccarat, Lalique, Waterford, and D'Argenta and in some cases controls the exclusive rights to selling a brand in its markets, targeting cruise-ship passengers and hotel guests as its customers. It also carries merchandise from Tiffany & Co., which owns 98 percent of Little Switzerland.

  

Origins
Although the majority of Little Switzerland's business is conducted overseas, the company's ties to the United States are extremely close. Little Switzerland began as the retail arm of another company, Chelsea, Massachusetts-based Town & Country Corporation. Town & Country was a homespun business that developed into a formidable competitor, a company founded by a teenager who spent four decades building his enterprise into a giant in the U.S. jewelry industry. C. William Carey started Town & Country in 1955 in his basement. Carey was 17 years old at the time and was able to finance the start-up of his enterprise only after his mother offered the Carey family home as collateral for a bank loan. During the ensuing decades, Carey cobbled together numerous jewelry manufacturing concerns, turning his basement workshop into an international conglomerate.

By the mid-1980s, Town & Country was generating roughly $100 million in annual revenue, a total produced by manufacturing plants in the United States, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Town & Country manufactured a wide range of jewelry items. All the merchandise manufactured by the company was sold to retailers, including massive chains such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. and small, independent retail operators. Carey also had started a small retail operation as he aggrandized his manufacturing might. In the Caribbean, he opened several stores whose purpose was to sell jewelry and gift items primarily to U.S. tourists. Travelers arriving in certain parts of the Caribbean could save between 20 percent and 40 percent at Carey's duty-free stores. The company paid no import taxes and enjoyed low tax payments, enabling it to offer a broad selection of merchandise at prices far below those advertised in the United States.
 
Little Switzerland is a specialty retailer of luxury items. Little Switzerland currently operates 17 distinctively designed retail stores on five Caribbean islands and Alaska. It's not easy to come away from Little Switzerland empty-handed. You'll find the Caribbean's premier duty-free shop overflowing with gold jewelry, precious gemstones, fragrances, crystal, china, and the islands' largest collection of Swiss timepieces. Every purchase is authenticated and guaranteed, so you'll never think twice.