Department store (Redirected from Department Store)

Interior of Le Bon Marché in Paris

A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appearance in the middle of the 19th century, and permanently reshaped shopping habits, and the definition of service and luxury. Similar developments were under way in London (with Whiteleys), in Paris (Le Bon Marché) and in New York City (Stewart's).

Today, departments often include the following: clothing, cosmetics, do it yourself, furniture, gardening, hardware, home appliances, houseware, paint, sporting goods, toiletries, and toys. Additionally, other lines of products such as food, books, jewellery, electronics, stationery, photographic equipment, baby products, and products for pets are sometimes included. Customers generally check out near the front of the store in discount department stores, while high-end traditional department stores include sales counters within each department. Some stores are one of many within a larger retail chain, while others are independent retailers.

Since the 1980s, they have come under heavy pressure from discounters, and have come under even heavier pressure from e-commerce sites since the 2000s.

Types

Sokos department store building in Multimäki, Kuopio, Finland

Department stores can be classified in several ways:

  • Mainline department store or simply, the traditional department store, offering mid- to high-end goods, most or at least some of the time at the full retail price. Examples are Macy's, Bloomingdale's, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, Sears and Belk.
    • Junior department store, a term used principally in the second part of the 20th century for a smaller version of a mainline department store. These were usually either independent stores, or chains such as Boston Store and Harris & Frank, which specialized in cosmetics and wearing apparel and accessories, with few home goods.
  • Discount department store, a large discount store selling apparel and home furnishings at a discount, either selling overstock from mainline department stores, or merchandise especially made for the discount department store market. Examples are Nordstrom Rack, Saks Off 5th, Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, and Kohl's.

Some sources may refer to the following types of stores as department stores, even though they are not generally considered as such:

History

Origins in England, 1700s

One of the first department stores may have been Bennett's in Derby, first established as an ironmonger (hardware shop) in 1734. It still stands to this day, trading in the same building. However, the first reliably dated department store to be established, was Harding, Howell & Co., which opened in 1796 on Pall Mall, London. (The oldest department store chain may be Debenhams, which was established in 1778 and closed in 2021. It is the longest trading defunct British retailer.) An observer writing in Ackermann's Repository, a British periodical on contemporary taste and fashion, described the enterprise in 1809 as follows:

The house is one hundred and fifty feet in length from front to back, and of proportionate width. It is fitted up with great taste, and is divided by glazed partitions into four departments, for the various branches of the extensive business, which is there carried on. Immediately at the entrance is the first department, which is exclusively appropriated to the sale of furs and fans. The second contains articles of haberdashery of every description, silks, muslins, lace, gloves, &etc. In the third shop, on the right, you meet with a rich assortment of jewelry, ornamental articles in ormolu, French clocks, &etc.; and on the left, with all the different kinds of perfumery necessary for the toilette. The fourth is set apart for millinery and dresses; so that there is no article of female attire or decoration, but what may be here procured in the first style of elegance and fashion. This concern has been conducted for the last twelve years by the present proprietors who have spared neither trouble nor expense to ensure the establishment of a superiority over every other in Europe, and to render it perfectly unique in its kind.

This venture is described as having all of the basic characteristics of the department store; it was a public retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different departments. Jonathan Glancey for the BBC writes:

Harding, Howell & Co was focused on the needs and desires of fashionable women. Here, at last women were free to browse and shop, safely and decorously, away from home and from the company of men. These, for the main part, were newly affluent middle-class women, their good fortune – and the department store itself – nurtured and shaped by the Industrial Revolution. This was transforming life in London and the length and breadth of Britain at a dizzying pace on the back of energetic free trade, fecund invention, steam and sail, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of expendable cheap labour.

This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820 when the business partnership was dissolved. All the major high streets in British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century. Increasingly, women became the main customers. Kendals (formerly Kendal Milne & Faulkner) in Manchester lays claim to being one of the first department stores and is still known to many of its customers as Kendal's, despite its 2005 name change to House of Fraser. The Manchester institution dates back to 1836 but had been trading as Watts Bazaar since 1796. At its zenith the store had buildings on both sides of Deansgate linked by a subterranean passage "Kendals Arcade" and an art nouveau tiled food hall. The store was especially known for its emphasis on quality and style over low prices giving it the nickname "the Harrods of the North", although this was due in part to Harrods acquiring the store in 1919. Harrods of London can be traced back to 1834, though the current store was built between 1894 and 1905. Liberty & Co. gained popularity in the 1870s for selling Oriental goods. In 1889 Oscar Wilde wrote "Liberty's is the chosen resort of the artistic shopper".

Origins in Parisian magasins de nouveautés

Au Bon Marché

The Paris department stores have roots in the magasin de nouveautés, or novelty store; the first, the Tapis Rouge, was created in 1784. They flourished in the early 19th century. Balzac described their functioning in his novel César Birotteau. In the 1840s, with the arrival of the railroads in Paris and the increased number of shoppers they brought, they grew in size, and began to have large plate glass display windows, fixed prices and price tags, and advertising in newspapers.

A novelty shop called Au Bon Marché had been founded in Paris in 1838 to sell items like lace, ribbons, sheets, mattresses, buttons, and umbrellas. It grew from 300 m2 (3,200 sq ft) and 12 employees in 1838 to 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) and 1,788 employees in 1879. Boucicaut was famous for his marketing innovations; a reading room for husbands while their wives shopped; extensive newspaper advertising; entertainment for children; and six million catalogs sent out to customers. By 1880 half the employees were women; unmarried women employees lived in dormitories on the upper floors.

Au Bon Marché soon had half a dozen or more competitors including Printemps, founded in 1865; La Samaritaine (1869), Bazaar de Hotel de Ville (BHV); and Galeries Lafayette (1895). The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores. The great writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) set his novel Au Bonheur des Dames (1882–83) in the typical department store, making it a symbol of the new technology that was both improving society and devouring it.

First Australian department stores

Australia is notable for having the longest continuously operating department store, David Jones. The first David Jones department store was opened on 24 May 1838, by Welsh born immigrant David Jones in a "large and commodious premises" on the corner of George and Barrack Streets in Sydney, only 50 years after the foundation of the colony. Expanding to a number of stores in the various states of Australia, David Jones is the oldest continuously operating department franchise in the world. Other department stores in Australia include Grace Bros founded in 1885, now merged with Myer which was founded in 1900.

First American department stores (1825–1858)

Arnold Constable was the first American department store. It was founded in 1825 as a small dry goods store on Pine Street in New York City. In 1857 the store moved into a five-story white marble dry goods palace known as the Marble House. During the Civil War, Arnold Constable was one of the first stores to issue charge bills of credit to its customers each month instead of on a bi-annual basis. The store soon outgrew the Marble House and erected a cast-iron building on Broadway and Nineteenth Street in 1869; this "Palace of Trade" expanded over the years until it was necessary to move into a larger space in 1914. Financial problems led to bankruptcy in 1975.

In New York City in 1846, Alexander Turney Stewart established the "Marble Palace" on Broadway, between Chambers and Reade streets. He offered European retail merchandise at fixed prices on a variety of dry goods, and advertised a policy of providing "free entrance" to all potential customers. Though it was clad in white marble to look like a Renaissance palazzo, the building's cast iron construction permitted large plate glass windows that permitted major seasonal displays, especially in the Christmas shopping season. In 1862, Stewart built a new store on a full city block uptown between 9th and 10th streets, with eight floors. His innovations included buying from manufacturers for cash and in large quantities, keeping his markup small and prices low, truthful presentation of merchandise, the one-price policy (so there was no haggling), simple merchandise returns and cash refund policy, selling for cash and not credit, buyers who searched worldwide for quality merchandise, departmentalization, vertical and horizontal integration, volume sales, and free services for customers such as waiting rooms and free delivery of purchases. In 1858, Rowland Hussey Macy founded Macy's as a dry goods store.

Innovations 1850–1917

Marshall Field's State Street store "great hall" interior around 1910

Marshall Field & Company originated in 1852. It was the premier department store on the busiest shopping street in the Midwest at the time, State Street in Chicago. Marshall Field's served as a model for other department stores in that it had exceptional customer service.[citation needed] Marshall Field's also had the firsts; among many innovations by Marshall Field's were the first European buying office, which was located in Manchester, England, and the first bridal registry. The company was the first to introduce the concept of the personal shopper, and that service was provided without charge in every Field's store, until the chain's last days under the Marshall Field's name. It was the first store to offer revolving credit and the first department store to use escalators.[citation needed] Marshall Field's book department in the State Street store was legendary;[citation needed] it pioneered the concept of the "book signing". Moreover, every year at Christmas, Marshall Field's downtown store windows were filled with animated displays as part of the downtown shopping district display; the "theme" window displays became famous for their ingenuity and beauty, and visiting the Marshall Field's windows at Christmas became a tradition for Chicagoans and visitors alike, as popular a local practice as visiting the Walnut Room with its equally famous Christmas tree or meeting "under the clock" on State Street.

In 1877, John Wanamaker opened what some claim was the United States' first "modern" department store in Philadelphia: the first to offer fixed prices marked on every article and also introduced electrical illumination (1878), the telephone (1879), and the use of pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880) to the department store business.

Aerial view of Anthony Hordern & Sons in Sydney, Australia (1936), once the largest department store in the world.
Selfridges, Oxford Street in London, 1944

Another store to revolutionize the concept of the department store was Selfridges in London, established in 1909 by American-born Harry Gordon Selfridge on Oxford Street. The company's innovative marketing promoted the radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity and its techniques were adopted by modern department stores the world over. The store was extensively promoted through paid advertising. The shop floors were structured so that goods could be made more accessible to customers. There were elegant restaurants with modest prices, a library, reading and writing rooms, special reception rooms for French, German, American and "Colonial" customers, a First Aid Room, and a Silence Room, with soft lights, deep chairs, and double-glazing, all intended to keep customers in the store as long as possible. Staff members were taught to be on hand to assist customers, but not too aggressively, and to sell the merchandise. Selfridge attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits; in 1909, Louis Blériot's monoplane was exhibited at Selfridges (Blériot was the first to fly over the English Channel), and the first public demonstration of television by John Logie Baird took place in the department store in 1925.

Utagawa Hiroshige designed an ukiyo-e print with Mount Fuji and Echigoya as landmarks. Echigoya is the former name of Mitsukoshi named after the former province of Echigo. The Mitsukoshi headquarters are located on the left side of the street.

In Japan, the first "modern-style" department store was Mitsukoshi, founded in 1904, which has its root as a kimono store called Echigoya from 1673. When the roots are considered, however, Matsuzakaya has an even longer history, dated from 1611. The kimono store changed to a department store in 1910. In 1924, Matsuzakaya store in Ginza allowed street shoes to be worn indoors, something innovative at the time. These former kimono shop department stores dominated the market in its earlier history. They sold, or instead displayed, luxurious products, which contributed to their sophisticated atmospheres. Another origin of the Japanese department store is from railway companies. There have been many private railway operators in the nation and, from the 1920s, they started to build department stores directly linked to their lines' termini. Seibu and Hankyu are typical examples of this type.

Innovation (1917–1945)

In the middle of the 1920s, American management theories such as the scientific management of F.W. Taylor started spreading in Europe. The International Management Institute (I.M.I.) was established in Geneva in 1927 to facilitate the diffusion of such ideas. A number of department stores teamed up together to create the International Association of Department Stores in Paris in 1928 to have a discussion space dedicated to this retail format.

Table of department store "firsts"
Year Store City/
Metro area
"First" Source
1923 I. Magnin Hollywood Los Angeles First suburban department store (not including hotel/resort stores)
1930 Suburban Square Philadelphia First department store branch to anchor a suburban shopping center

Expansion to malls

The U.S. Baby Boom led to the development of suburban neighborhoods and suburban commercial developments, including shopping malls. Department stores joined these ventures following the growing market of baby boomer spending.

A handful of U.S. retailers had opened seasonal stores in resorts, as well as smaller branch stores in suburbs, in the 1920s and 1930s. Examples include, in suburban Los Angeles, The Broadway-Hollywood, Bullocks Wilshire, The May Company-Wilshire, Saks-Beverly Hills, as well as two Strawbridge and Clothier stores: Suburban Square (1930) and Jenkintown (1931) outside Philadelphia. Suburban Square was the first shopping center anchored by a department store. In the 1950s, suburban growth took off - for example, in 1952, May Company California opened a four-level, 346,700-square-foot (32,210 m2) store in Lakewood Center near Los Angeles, at the time, the largest suburban department store in the world. However, only three years later it would build an even bigger, 452,000-square-foot (42,000 m2) store in the San Fernando Valley at Laurel Plaza.

Expansion worldwide

2010-today

Starting in 2010 many analyists referred to a retail apocalypse in the United States and some other markets, referring to the closing of brick-and-mortar retail stores, especially those of large chains. In 2017, over 12,000 U.S. stores closed due to over-expansion of malls, rising rents, bankruptcies, leveraged buyouts, low quarterly profits other than during holiday peak periods, delayed effects of the Great Recession of 2008-9, shifts in spending to experiences rather than material goods, relaxed dress codes in workplaces, and the shift to e-commerce in which Amazon.com and Walmart dominated versus the online offerings of traditional retailers.

COVID-19 increased the number of permanent store closings in two ways: first through mandatory temporary closing of stores, especially in March and April of 2020, with customers largely staying away from stores for non-essential purchases for many more months after that; and secondly, by causing a shift to working from home, which stimulated e-commerce further and reduced demand for business apparel.

Click-and-collect, curbside pickup

Click-and-collect services at department stores had been increasing during the 2010s, with many creating larger, distinctly signed, designated areas. Some of the more elaborate ones included features such as reception and seating areas with coffee served, computers with large screens for online shopping, and dressing rooms.

With the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, most U.S. retailers offered a curbside pickup service as an option on their websites, and a dedicated area at one of the store entrances accessible by car.

Store-within-a-store

Along with discount stores, mainline department stores implemented more and more "stores-within-a-store". For luxury brands this was often in boutiques similar to the brands' own shops on streets and in malls; they hired their own employees who merchandised the selling space, and rang up the transactions at the brand's own cash registers. The main difference was that the boutique was physically inside the department store building, although in many cases there are walls or windows between the main store space and the boutique, with designated entrances.

Around the world

Largest flagship stores

Table of largest department store flagship or branch stores by sales area

Incomplete list, notable stores of 50,000 m2 (538,196 sq ft) or more. Individual department store buildings or complexes of buildings. Does not include shopping centers (e.g. GUM in Moscow, Intime "Department Stores" in China) where most space is leased out to other retailers, big-box catetgory killer stores (e.g. Best Buy, Decathlon), hypermarkets, discount stores (e.g. Walmart, Carrefour), markets, or souqs.

closed open
Company Branch City Country Sq m Sq ft Opened** Closed
Shinsegae Centum City Busan S. Korea 293,905 3,163,567 Jun 26, 2009 open
  • Largest in the world according to Guinness
Macy's Herald Square
(see article)
New York U.S. 232,258 2,500,000 1902 open
Anthony Hordern & Sons Sydney Australia 210,437 2,265,120 closed
Gimbels Center City Philadelphia U.S. 202,343 2,178,000 1894 1993
  • Upon opening its 12-story addition at 9th & Chestnut in 1927, it was, at 50 acres, the largest department store in the world.
Hudson's Downtown Detroit Detroit U.S. 197,355 (1983) 2,124,316 (1983) 1891 Jan 17, 1983
  • 25 floors, 2 half-floors, 1 mezzanine, 4 basements. 410 ft (125 m) high, tallest department store in the world at the time.
Marshall Fields,
now Macy's
State Street store
(see article)
Chicago U.S. 185,806 (1912) 2,000,000 (1912) 1902 open
  • Largest in the world in 1912
Wanamaker's,
now Macy's
1300 Market St., Center City Philadelphia U.S. 176,516 (1995) 1,900,000 (1995)
1876 open
Shinsegae Uijeongbu (의정부점) Uijeongbu S. Korea 145,000 1,560,000 open
  • As of 2020, retail space has been reduced to 435,000 sq ft (40,413 m2).
Rich's Downtown Atlanta U.S. 115,886 1,247,382 1924 1994
Kaufmann's 400 5th Ave., Downtown Pittsburgh U.S. 111,484 1,200,000 1887 Sep 20, 2015
  • from 2005 to 2015 operated as Macy's
Wertheim Leipziger Straße Berlin Germany 106,000 1,140,975 Dec 1897 Nov 1943
May Co. Public Square Cleveland U.S. 104,144 1,121,000 1915 1993
Hankyu Umeda
(see article in Japanese)
Osaka Japan 102,758 1,106,078 Apr 15, 1929 open
  • Includes Main Store and adjacent Men's Store (16,000,2) - by which measure, the largest department store complex in Japan. Japan's first railway station department store. Original store opened 1929, was dismantled and new store opened (part of it on the old site) in 2005.
Le Bon Marché 7th arrondissement Paris France 102,360 1,101,794 Apr 2, 1872 open
  • Largest in Europe
Hamburger's/
May Company
Broadway, Downtown
(see article)
Los Angeles U.S. 102,193 1,100,000 1906 1986
Harrods Knightsbridge London U.K. 102,193 1,100,000 1849 open
  • Largest in Europe
Kintetsu Abeno Harukas
(see article in Japanese)
Osaka Japan 100,000 1,076,391 Mar 2014 open
  • Largest in Japan in a single building
Intime Ningbo General Ningbo China 96,000 1,003,335 open
Gimbels Herald Square New York U.S. 92,903 1,000,000 Sep 29, 1910 Sep 27, 1986
Shinsegae Daejeon (대전신세계) Shinsegae Art & Science Daejeon S. Korea 88,572 dept. store area[citation needed] 953,380 2021 open
Carson Pirie Scott State Street Chicago U.S. 87,695 943,944 1872/1898 Feb 21, 2007
Mandel Bros./
Wieboldt's
State Street Chicago U.S. 81,848 881,000 1875 Jul 18, 1987
Takashimaya Minami (Namba-Shinsaibashi) Osaka Japan 78,000 839,585 open
Daimaru Shinsaibashi
(see article in Japanese)
Osaka Japan 77,000 828,821 1922 open
Eaton's/
Sears Canada
Eaton Centre Toronto Canada 76,809 816,000 Feb 10, 1977 Feb 9, 2014
  • 9-story Eaton's flagship. Converted to Sears 2002, closed 2014. Space divided, converted to Nordstrom (2016-2023) and offices.
Bullock's Broadway, Downtown Los Angeles U.S. 75,809 806,000 1907 1983
The Bon Marché Downtown
see article
Seattle U.S. 74,322 800,000 1929 2020
Karstadt
now Galeria
Hermannplatz (see article in German) Berlin Germany 72,000 775,002 1929 open
  • "The most advanced in Europe" in 1929; 9 stories incl. 2 underground; 8 freight elevators, 13 dumbwaiters, 24 passenger elevators. One freight elevator transported loaded trucks to the 5th floor food area. First in Europe with direct access from a subway station. Destroyed by bombing and fire in 1945 except for a small portion, which reopened in June 1945 and was later expanded.
The Emporium Market Street San Francisco U.S. 72,000 775,000 1908 1996
El Corte Inglés Torre Titania, Paseo de la Castellana, Castellana Madrid Spain 70,000 753,474 2011 open
Galeries Lafayette Boulevard Haussmann Paris France 70,000 753,474 1912 open
Lazarus 141 S. High St. (see article) Columbus, Ohio U.S. 65,000 700,000 1909 2004
Isetan Shinjuku
(see article in Japanese)
Tokyo Japan 64,296 692,080 Sep 28, 1933 open
Daimaru Umeda
(see article in Japanese)
Osaka Japan 64,000 688,890 open
El Palacio de Hierro/
Casa Palacio
Centro Santa Fe Santa Fe, Mexico City Mexico 61,987 667,223 1993 open
Saks Fifth Avenue Midtown
(see article)
New York U.S. 60,387 650,000 1924 open
KaDeWe Tauentzienstraße Berlin Germany 60,000 645,835 Mar 27, 1907 open
J. W. Robinson's 7th St. Downtown Los Angeles U.S. 57,940 623,700 Sep 7, 1915 Feb 1993
Shinsegae Myeongdong Main Store (본점 본관, 신관) Seoul S. Korea 56,528 608,460 open
Halle's Halle Building, 1228 Euclid Ave., Downtown Cleveland, Ohio U.S. 56,300 606,000 1910 1982
Selfridges Oxford Street London U.K. 55,742 600,000 Mar 15, 1909 open
El Palacio de Hierro Polanco Mexico City Mexico 55,200 594,168 2016 open
The Broadway Broadway, Downtown Los Angeles U.S. 53,600 577,000 Feb 24, 1896 Nov 16, 1973
Hanshin Umeda
(see article in Japanese)
Osaka Japan 54,000 581,251 open
Isetan JR West Ōsaka Station
(see article in Japanese))
Osaka Japan 50,000 538,196 May 4, 2011 Jul 28, 2014

*store has no branches **opened at this location (may have expanded significantly in the years after initial opening)

See also


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