He pioneered the now-common practices of buying merchandise directly from manufacturers and fixing the selling prices on items, rather than haggling.

[3] His paternal ancestors were English farmers who left England around 1665 settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony area.

[3] Woolworth finished his schooling at age 16, yet he was unfit to begin working in any legitimate store with only basic knowledge and no experience.

[3] In 1873, Woolworth worked as a stock boy in a general store called Augsbury & Moore's Drygoods in Watertown,[3] and his experiences there served as the starting point to his own business venture and innovations.

He was considered to be an inept salesman[3] and was given jobs such as washing the windows, where he found a creative niche arranging the store's front display; his work was so impressive that his boss assigned him that role.

Gail Fenske suggests that Woolworth had heard of a "five-cent counter craze" while questioning his own sales ability at his first job.

[6] Jean Maddern Pitrone suggests that the idea was conceived after a travelling salesman told Woolworth of stores in Michigan with five-cent counters.

[7] Plunkett-Powell suggests that Woolworth overheard the concept during a discussion between William Moore and a young man who had opened his own cut-rate goods store.

He opened his second store in April 1879 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he expanded the concept to include merchandise priced at ten cents.

Wanting to implement his ideas on a much larger scale, F. W. adopted a policy of acquiring smaller chains of his competitors.

He died without signing his newest will, so his mentally handicapped wife received the entire estate under the provision of his older 1889 will.

The original chain went out of business on July 17, 1997, as the firm changed its name, initially to Venator, but in 2001 adopted its sporting goods brand, Foot Locker, Inc.