Department store
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The interior of a typical Macy's department store. |
A
department store is a
retail establishment which specializes in selling a wide range of products without a single predominant merchandise line. Department stores usually sell products including
apparel,
furniture,
appliances,
electronics, and additionally select other lines of products such as
paint,
hardware, toiletries,
cosmetics, photographic equipment,
jewelry,
toys, and
sporting goods. Certain department stores are further classified as discount department stores. Discount department stores commonly have central customer
checkout areas, generally in the front area of the store. Department stores are usually part of a
retail chain of many stores situated around a country or several countries.
Hudson's Bay Company in
Canada was the first
store to include departments; however, by modern standards, it would not be considered a department store because of the size and range of items that were stocked. The same may be said about
Gostiny Dvor in
St Petersburg, which opened in
1785 and should probably be regarded as one of the first purposely-built
shopping malls in the world, as it consisted of more than 100 shops covering an area of over 53,000 m².
The first true department store was founded by Aristide Boucicaut in
Paris. He founded
Bon Marché in
1838, and by
1852 it offered a wide variety of goods in "departments" inside one building. Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees allowing exchanges and refunds. By the end of the
19th century, Georges Dufayel, a French credit merchant, had served up to three million customers and was affiliated with
La Samaritaine, a large French department store established in 1870 by a former Bon Marché executive.
The oldest independent department store in the world, until it was recently purchased by
House of Fraser, was
Jenners in Edinburgh, Scotland, which has maintained its original position on Edinburgh's
Princes Street since 1838.
In
New York City in
1846,
Alexander Turney Stewart established the "Marble Palace" on the east-
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. In
1862 Stewart built a department store on a full city block at Broadway and 9th Street, opposite Grace Church, with eight floors and nineteen departments of dress goods and furnishing materials, carpets, glass and china, toys and sports equipment, ranged around a central glass-covered court. Within a couple of decades,
New York's retail center had moved uptown, forming a stretch of retail shopping from "Marble Palace" that was called the "Ladies' Mile". In
1858 Rowland Hussey Macy founded
Macy's as a dry goods store. Benjamin Altman and
Lord & Taylor soon competed with Stewart as New York's first department stores, later followed by "McCreary's" and, in
Brooklyn, "Abraham & Straus" (The Straus family would be in the management of both Macy's and A&S.
Similar developments were under way in
London (with
Whiteleys), in
Paris (with
La Samaritaine) and in
Chicago, where department stores sprang up along State Street, notably
Marshall Field and Company, which remains the second-largest store in the world (after Macy's). In
1877,
Wanamaker's opened in
Philadelphia. Philadelphia's
John Wanamaker performed a
19th century redevelopment to the former
Pennsylvania Railroad terminal in that city and eventually opened a modern day department store in the building.
On
March 1,
1869 Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution was opened in
Salt Lake City as a new community store that became the first incorporated department store in America in
1870. A new 3-story brick and iron store was built in 1876, noted for its unique architecture and striped awnings. This store was replaced by an enclosed shopping center in 1973, and the new Zion department store preserved the gilt-edged ornate facade of the old store. In 1999 the
May Department Stores bought a 14-store ZCMI chain and changed its name to "Meier & Frank", a May property with eight stores in
Oregon and
Washington. Subsequently
May Department Stores completed a merger with
Federated Department Stores and the Meier & Frank brand ZCMI stores will become
Macy's stores sometime in late 2006.
In
1881,
Joseph Lowthian Hudson opened a small men's clothing store in Detroit. After 10 years he had 8 stores in the midwest and was the most profitable clothing retailer in the country. In 1893 he began construction of the immense department store at Gratiot and Farmer streets in Detroit. The 25-story tower was added in 1928, and a 12-story addition in 1946, giving the entire complex 49 acres of floor space. In 1954 the company became a suburban shopping center pioneer when it built Northland 13 miles northwest of Detroit. In 1969 it merged with the Dayton Corporation to create Dayton-Hudson headquartered in Minneapolis. George Dayton had founded his Dayton's Daylight store in Minneapolis in 1902 and the AMC cooperative in 1912, built the Southdale Shopping Center in 1956, and started the Target discount store chain in 1962. The new corporation closed the flagship Hudson department store in downtown Detroit in 1983, but expanded its other retail operations. It acquired Mervyn's in 1978, Marshall Field's in 1990, and renamed itself the Target Corporation in 2000.
By
1890 a new world of retailing had been created as department stores had a clear market position as universal providers.
General stores eventually became department stores as small towns became cities. The most prominent department stores emerged from small shops. The department store created several of
North America's first large businesses. The department store is also largely responsible for the standard store design seen today, because of its size it required new building materials, glass technology and new heating, amongst other architectural innovations. The store layouts made shopping easier for consumers regardless of their social or economic background. The department store also offered new customer services never before seen such as restaurants, restrooms, reading rooms, home delivery, wrapping services, store hours, new types of merchandise displays and so forth.
Some department stores leased space to individual merchants, similar to the changes in late
17th-century London, but by
1900 the smaller merchants were purchased or eventually replaced by the larger companies. In this way they were very similar to our modern malls, where the property owner has no direct interest in the actual department store itself, other than to collect rent and provide utilities. Today only the most specialized departments are leased out, such as photography, photo finishing, automotive services or financial services. However, today this is rare, as most departmentsis usually run by the store itself.
Before the
1950s, the department store held an eminent place in both
Canada and
Australia, during both the
Great Depression and
World War II. Since then, they have suffered from strong competition from
specialist stores. Most recently the competition has intensified with the advent of larger-scale superstores (Jones et al. 1994; Merrilees and Miller 1997). Competition was not the only reason for the department stores' weakening strength; the changing structure of cities also affected them. The compact and centralized 19th century city with its mass transit lines converging on the downtown was a perfect environment for department store growth. But as residents moved out of the downtown areas to the suburbs, the large, downtown department stores became inconvenient and lost business to the newer suburban shopping malls.
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A typical Wal-Mart discount department store. |
A discount store is a type of department store, which sell products at prices lower than those asked by traditional retail outlets. Most discount department stores offer wide assortments of goods; others specialize in such merchandise as jewelry, electronic equipment, or electrical appliances. Discount stores are not
dollar stores, which sell goods at a dollar or less. Discount stores differ because they sell branded goods and prices vary widely between different products. Discount department stores are more popular in the United States than other countries. Following
World War II, a number of retail establishments in the United States began to pursue a high-volume, low-profit strategy designed to attract price-conscious consumers.
During the period from the
1950s to the late-
1980s, discount stores were more popular than the average
supermarket or department store. There were hundreds of discount stores in operation, with their most successful period occurring during the mid-
1960s in the
United States with discount store chains such as
Kmart,
Zayre, Kuhn's-Big K (sold to
Wal-Mart in
1981),
GEM,
TG&Y and
Woolco (closed in 1983, part sold to Wal-Mart) amongst others. Currently,
Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, operates 1,353 discount stores in the United States;
Target and
Kmart are Wal-Mart's top competitors.
Examples of discount retail
chain stores include
Wal-Mart,
Kmart and
Target, all of which opened their first locations in
1962. Other retail companies branched out into the discount store business around this time as adjuncts to their older store concepts. As examples,
Woolworth opened a
Woolco chain;
Montgomery Ward opened Jefferson Ward; Chicago-based
Jewel launched
Turn Style; and Central Indiana-based
L.S. Ayres created Ayr-Way. These chains typically were either shut down or sold to a larger competitor during the late '70s and early '80s. Kmart and Target themselves are examples of adjuncts, although their growth prompted their respective parent companies to abandon their older concepts (the S.S. Kresge
five and dime store disappeared, while the
Dayton-Hudson Corporation eventually divested itself of its department store holdings and renamed itself Target Corporation).
Many of the major discounters are now opening "supercenters", which add a full-service grocery store to the traditional format. The
Meijer chain in the Midwest consists entirely of supercenters, while Wal-Mart and Target have focused on the format as of the '90s as a key to their continued growth. Although discount stores and department stores have different retailing goals and different markets, a recent development in retailing is the "discount department store", such as
Sears Essentials, which is a combination of the Kmart and Sears formats, following the companies' merger as
Sears Holdings Corporation.
Australia
Although there were a number of depertment stores in Australia for much of the 20th Century, today
Myer and
David Jones, located nationally, are practically the national deparment stores
duopoly in Australia. Other retails chain stores such as
Target,
Kmart and
Big W also located nationally are considered to be Australia's bargain department stores. Most department stores in Australia have their own credit card companies, each having their own benefits while the bargain department stores do not have their own credit card rights.
China
Department stores first appeared in
China at the beginning of the 20th Century, the concept said to be introduced by expatriate Chinese living in
Australia. Before 1949, there were four main department stores in
Shanghai:
Wing On,
Sincere,
Sun Sun and
Yat Sun; the first two still exist today.
During
World War II patriotic sentiment in China had led to the formation of a number of department stores specializing in locally-made merchandise. This type of stores became the mainstay in China after the formation of the
Communist state in 1949.
Both types of department stores have long had branches in
Hong Kong; however
Japanese department stores began to appear in the 1960s, and within a generation's time became the dominant force in the market. The
Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s had resulted in the closures of some of these stores, but on the whole Hong Kong still has one of the world's most competitive retail markets.
El Salvador
*
Siman. The most important Department store Chain in Central America .
*
Carrion. [
1]
*
Dorian's. Mexican Department stores present only in Mexico and El Salvador. [
2]
Ireland
Originally the
Republic of Ireland had only one department store,
Clerys, however several large retailers now own chains of department stores, such as:
*
Dunnes Stores*
Roches Stores*
Marks&SpencerThere are also many self-owned department stores around the country, especially in rural towns.
United Kingdom
All of the early department stores in
London started out as small
drapery stores which bought up neighbouring stores and increased their range of products.
|
The exterior of Harrods in London. |
*
Whiteleys in
Westbourne Grove was first to grow to department store size. By
1867 it consisted of 17 departments and by
1890 it was operating in a purposely built department store and had over 6,000 staff employed in the business.
*
Barkers in
Kensington can be defined as a department store by
1880, when it encompassed 15 neighbouring stores, and in
1889 the company moved into a new, large building.
*
Peter Jones in
Sloane Square had grown to department store size by
1890.
*
Harrods was reborn as a proper department store in
1889, after a devastating fire in
1883.
*
John Lewis in
Oxford Street was a true department store by
1900.
*
Selfridges was opened in
1909 by the American entrepreneur
Harry Gordon Selfridge, and thus became London's seventh department store.
In
Edinburgh,
Jenners saw a similar development. It starting as a drapery store in
1838, which by
1890 had grown into Scotland's largest retail store by gobbling up all the small stores in the neighbourhood. In 1895, after a devastating fire, a new ultra-modern building opened, with lavish electrical lighting, hydraulic lifts and air conditioning. Four hours after the grand opening, 25,000 people had already visited the store.
In the
UK the term "department store" still refers to the traditional, classic department store, which has a wide range of independent departments with their own staff and their own
tills. Large discount stores with the tills located by the entrance are not regarded as department stores in the UK, although the owners may call them that.
United States
In the
United States, companies such as
Marshall Field's,
Macy's,
Dillard's,
Sears, and
J.C. Penney are considered department stores, while retail brands such as
Target,
Kmart, and
Wal-Mart are discount department stores. Stores that carry a general line of groceries and other product lines similar to those of department stores are considered warehouse clubs or supercenters. Warehouse clubs require a nominal annual membership fee, while supercenters do not.
Costco,
BJ's Wholesale Club, and
Sam's Club are examples of warehouse clubs.
Famous defunct American department stores include
Montgomery Ward, the world's first
mail order business;
McCrory; and
Woolworth's (which, after closing the remaining Woolworth stores, changed its corporate name to that of its top-performing subsidiary:
Foot Locker).
*
List of department stores*
Distribution*
Depāto (Japanese department stores)
*
Retailer*
Marketing*Abelson, Elaine S.
When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
*Barth, Gunther. "The Department Store," in
City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
*Benson, Susan Porter.
Counter Culture: Saleswomen, Managers and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988. ISBN 025206013X.
*Ershkowicz, Herbert.
John Wanamaker, Philadelphia Merchant. New York: DaCapo Press, 1999.
*Gibbons, Herbert Adams.
John Wanamaker. New York: Harper & Row, 1926.
*Hendrickson, Robert.
The Grand Emporiums: The Illustrated History of America's Great Department Stores. New York: Stein and Day, 1979.
*Leach, William.
Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Pantheon, 1993. ISBN 0679754113.
*Parker, K. (2003). "Sign Consumption in the 19th-Century Department Store: An Examination of Visual Merchandising in the Grand Emporiums (1846 " 1900)."
Journal of Sociology 39 (4): 353"371.
*Schlereth, Thomas J.
Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876-1915. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
*
Sobel, Robert. "John Wanamaker: The Triumph of Content Over Form," in
The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition New York: Weybright & Talley,
1974). ISBN 0679400648.
*Spang, Rebecca L.
The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. 325 p.
*
History of The Department Store*
A.T. Stewart's*
The Wonderful World of the Department Store in Historical Perspective: A Comprehensive International Bibliography Partially Annotate, Robert D. Tamilia Ph.D. " Long detailed paper describing the history of the department store (PDF)
*
The First Department Store article at allaboutstuff.com *
International Association of Department Stores
