Silo went public in 1962, raising money to fuel its geographic expansion throughout a region bounded by Trenton, NJ, Wilmington, DE, and Reading, PA.

In 1970 Silo made its first foray beyond the Philadelphia metro area, purchasing a number of Downing's stores from Sam Bloom in Denver, Colorado.

The Colorado and Arizona acquisitions enjoyed rapid expansion, as Silo applied its formula of low pricing, huge selection, and aggressive advertising.

Silo honored the offer, trading 32 stereos in Seattle and three in El Paso for bananas; the stores lost $10,465 on these transactions.

Feinberg believed that Silo could stand on its own in new markets, without purchasing "recognition," and his approach was successful for a number of years.

[3] Cyclops had decided to diversify outside of the steel business and had already made one retail acquisition, the Busy Beaver home store chain in Pittsburgh, PA. Cyclops was willing to bet aggressively on Feinberg's strategy of attacking new markets with multiple simultaneous store openings accompanied by a massive advertising blitz - all under the Silo brand.

[citation needed] Prior to opening its first store, the company launched a highly visible but deliberately ambiguous "teaser" ad campaign, "The Silos are coming", arousing much curiosity, and even fear of the upcoming date.

[citation needed] Cyclops ultimately sold the retailer to Dixons Group PLC, a Great Britain-based firm, in 1987.

While competitors were opening much larger superstores, Dixons was comfortable with the far smaller footprint of its urban retail outlets in the UK, often as small as 2,000 square feet.

At the time of the purchase, Silo featured 183 stores that were, due to stiff competition from such retailers as Circuit City and Best Buy, facing dwindling sales.

One way Fretter dealt with this challenge was to convert several of the Silo stores into outlet-based units to sell off the excess inventory.

Declining market shares, lingering debt from the acquisition, and an outdated store format eventually doomed Fretter to failure.

The company began to exit its markets, quickly and quietly, and customers and employees would sometimes find the stores suddenly closed during normal business hours.

This resulted in a mob of customers flocking to the Pittsburgh stores to demand goods left on lay-a-way, or a return of their deposits.