0 (one of) a group of shops that belong to a single company, have the same appearance, and sell similar goods --
1 a store that is part of a chain of similar stores selling the same type of product, and that are all owned and controlled by the same organization: --
If one were dealing with a chain store, one would certainly not have the slightest difficulty.
The small shop may save an old lady walking half a mile to a multiple or chain store in the main street.
As the chairman of a chain store said that day, we are all the customers now.
They are eminent men with honourable careers behind them, but this is not a chain store or a railway or an ordinary business.
Our competitors have got ahead of us because we use tactics for which a branch manager of a chain store would be fired for using.
It would not be wholesale because the chain store would be buying direct from the farmer.
We have here the old argument between the independent shop and the chain store.
The head office of a large chain store group which has a rateable value of £2 million finds that to them a 2p rate represents £47,000.