After Simon had married into the owner family of Warenhaus Ury Gebrüder in Leipzig, the two brothers enlarged the business to a chain by establishing a second department store in Zwickau.

After the death of Simon Schocken in a car crash in 1929, his brother was sole owner.

The most famous stores are the ones in Nuremberg (Aufseßplatz) (built 1925/26, demolished), Stuttgart (→ Schocken Stuttgart, 1926–28, demolished 1960) and Chemnitz (1927–30) designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn.

[1] After the rise of Nazism, Salman Schocken was forced to sell his department stores to the Merkur AG (so-called "Aryanisation").

After the war, Schocken sold his regained share of the company (51%) to Helmut Horten GmbH, which later became part of Kaufhof and is currently owned by Metro.