The company's founder and spokesman, Ollie Fretter, became known in the Detroit area in the 1970s and 1980s via TV commercials in which he promised, "I’ll give you five pounds of coffee if I can't beat your best deal.
When occasionally he had to make good on the whimsical offer, Fretter gave away one-pound cans of coffee that had been relabeled "net weight — 5 pounds".
Fretter maintained its marketing strategy as a low-cost retailer, even hiring outside research companies to compare prices with competitors and making that information available to sales people at their point-of-sale terminals.
[citation needed] Fretter owned a small chain of mobile electronics retailers, DASH Concepts, that installed car audio, security, and other similar products.
(Your Electronics Superstore) but this move did not make it to any of the stores; they all retained their original designations of Silo, Fretter, Fred Schmid, DASH Concepts, and other.
The acquisition, assumption of Silo debt and lack of liquid assets, lead the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, forcing the chain to close many locations.