The son of a small storekeeper in Wisconsin, Selfridge at age 21 joined the wholesale-retail firm of Field, Leiter and Company (later Marshall Field and Company) in Chicago, where he worked for 25 years and became a junior partner. In 1906 he went to England with a fortune and began to build a large department store in Oxford Street, London. When his partner withdrew, Selfridge obtained support from a wealthy tea broker, and in 1908 Selfridge and Company, Ltd., was registered (with £900,000 capital) to complete the project. The store opened in 1909 with a floor area of 42,000 square feet, which later was doubled.

Imaginative advertising, ingenious publicity, and novel interior arrangements immediately made Selfridges a household word, and in 1937 its owner became a British citizen. By 1939, however, he had lost his touch as a businessman, and because of his personal extravagance the banks caused him to be replaced.