Dictionary:
department store
n.
A large retail store offering a variety of merchandise and services and organized in separate departments.
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Business Dictionary:
Department Store
Large retail store having a wide variety of merchandise organized into customer-based departments. A department store usually sells dry goods, household items, wearing apparel, furniture, furnishings, appliances, radios, and televisions, with combined sales exceeding $10 million.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
department store
For more information on department store, visit Britannica.com.
US History Encyclopedia:
Department Stores
Department Stores have their roots in the New York City business arena of the industrial era. Their success in the mid-nineteenth century created such retailing giants as Macy'S, Gimbels, Marshall Field's in Chicago, and Neiman-Marcus in Dallas. Department stores indirectly paved the way for department/mail-order stores, smaller department/chain stores, and late-twentieth-century mass merchandising department/discount stores like Wal-Mart. The story of department store shopping is one that seemingly forever will be bound up in the transportation and travel patterns of Americans. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, subsistence growing and local handwork were the anchors of American buying. The limitations of foot travel or horse-drawn travel necessitated such an economy. Farmers grew what their families needed as well as what they could sell from the back of a wagon to people in nearby towns. In addition, handicraft artisans sold items such as furniture, candles, or tack to locals. Transportation advances began to change that economy. River travel by steamboat became practical after 1810; canal travel after 1825; rail travel after about 1832 in the East and from coast to coast after 1869 when work crews completed the Transcontinental Railroad.
Until the Industrial Revolution, however, production could not effectively utilize the potential of new transportation. Interchangeable parts, assembly line techniques, vertical integration of businesses, and urban industrialized centers made production of virtually all goods quicker and more cost efficient, allowing manufacturers to capitalize on transportation.
Yet merchandising outlets for mass-produced goods lagged behind the capabilities of industrialized production and transportation. Producers discovered that, without sufficient retail outlets, a large percentage of their goods could quickly become surplus, eating away at their bottom line. Industrialization also enabled companies to produce new goods that the buying public had never encountered and for which it had no need or desire. Wholesalers and brokers had already worked the agricultural produce system, taking grain and vegetables from farms to markets and profiting in the process. They were prepared to do the same for manufactured goods, but the cycle begged for some type of marketing or retail system to marry goods to consumers.
A new type of store filled the bill. City stores and shops specialized in specific goods, such as clothing or cookware. General stores had small offerings of a variety of goods, but neither could exploit what industrialized production and transportation could supply. Department stores could. From the beginning, department stores were large. Inside, owners divided them into "departments" which contained similar types of goods.
Although not the most famous of storeowners, Alexander Turney Stewart is the father of the American department store. An immigrant Irish schoolteacher, Stewart opened a small dry-goods store in New York in 1823. He prospered well enough to open a second store, Marble Dry Goods in 1848. In 1862 he built the huge Cast Iron Palace that claimed an entire city block and was the largest retail store in the world at the time.
Aside from creating the department store, Stewart started the practice of "no haggle" shopping. Haggling, the practice of buyers and sellers negotiating a price acceptable to both, was a tradition in American shopping. But Stewart saw that salesmen could conduct more business without the obstacle of haggling, and he also perceived that many shoppers did not like the haggling ritual. Instead, he settled on a price he could accept for every product he sold, then he marked the product with that price. His customers were free to pay the price or shop elsewhere. With little exception, they liked the policy and Stewart made millions of dollars.
The Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker, as did all other department store pioneers, adopted Stewart's "one-price" policy, but he took it a step farther. Wanamaker, who first partnered with Nathan Brown in 1861, then worked alone after Brown's death in 1868, offered customers a "satisfaction guaranteed" policy that he backed with the promise of exchanges or refunds. While other merchants followed suit, Wanamaker was one of the first merchants to run a full-page ad in newspapers, and his endless advertising associated him most with the satisfaction pledge, something he called "the Golden Rule of business." Wanamaker branched out with stores in Pittsburgh, Memphis, St. Louis, Baltimore, Richmond, and Louisville. Ultimately he expanded into New York City, setting up business in one of Alexander Stewart's old stores.
Today, neither Stewart nor Wanamaker is a household name. R. H. Macy is. Rowland H. Macy founded the famous New York City department store that is known to most Americans as the annual sponsor of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and also because it is the scene of much of the story in the classic Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street. The Macy's name is synonymous with American department stores.
R. H. Macy opened his first store—a sewing supply store—in Boston in 1844. He followed that with a dry goods store in 1846. Like thousands of other Americans, Macy followed the gold rush to California in 1849–1850. Unlike most of them, however, he did not mine for gold, but instead opened another store. In that Macy showed savvy, for most argonauts remained poor; those who serviced them did markedly better.
By 1851, Macy had returned to Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he opened the Haverhill Cheap Store, advertising a one-price policy. By 1858, Macy had moved to New York City, opening a dry goods store uptown. His business was remarkable, doing more than $85,000 in sales the first year. That same year Macy inaugurated the practice of setting up beautiful, fanciful toy displays in his store windows at Christmas.
Macy started buying up adjacent properties to expand his business. He also leased departments inside his store to outside retailers, which served to increase customer traffic. His sales volume enabled him to undercut other department stores, and he advertised the lowest prices of any store in the city. Macy entered mail-order sales in 1861. He inaugurated the now-traditional policy of clearance sales to liquidate merchandise and bolster cash flow. He also offered free delivery to nearby New York City boroughs.
Macy died in 1877, and management of the store passed through various hands until Isidor and Nathan Straus, friends who had previously leased a china concession inside Macy's, took over the management and ultimately bought controlling stock in Macy's. Later Macy's would become part of the Federated Department Store group.
Gimbel's was another famous New York City department store. Bavarian immigrant Adam Gimbel began his business career on the American frontier, establishing a trading post at Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. There he brought the one-price policy to westerners. Gimbel prospered and opened stores in Milwaukee and Philadelphia. In 1910, Gimbel's son, Isaac, opened a store in New York City that successfully competed with Macy's. The Gimbel family later acquired the Saks company and, with Horace Saks, opened Saks Fifth Avenue for more affluent customers in 1924.
Department stores with one-price policies and satisfaction guarantees opened in urban areas across the nation. One of the most successful outside of New York City was Marshall Field's in Chicago. Marshall Field was a young businessman working in Chicago in the late 1850s at the same time as businessman Potter Palmer was parlaying a dry goods store into a lucrative business and real-estate holding. In 1865, Palmer took in Field and Field's friend Levi Leiter to form Field, Leiter, and Palmer. By 1868, Field and Leiter bought out Palmer, then rented business space from him on State Street in Chicago. The pair survived the devastating Chicago Fire of 1871, but parted ways a decade later. Field bought out Leiter, and he formed Marshall Field and Company.
Field directed the store to annual profits of more than $4 million. Part of Field's success was that he practiced two policies that became the credo of American businessmen. First, "give the lady what she wants"; second, "the customer is always right." Field brought up John G. Shedd and Harry G. Selfridge, two former stock boys, to help with management. Shedd directed the store's change from a dry goods store to a department store like Macy's in New York. He became president of Marshall Field's after Field's death in 1906.
Department stores have always had to identify their niche with the public. Some, like Macy's, catered to all classes. Others, like Saks Fifth Avenue, appealed to a more elite clientele. One Dallas department store has always catered to customers with exotic tastes. In 1907, Herbert Marcus and his brother-in-law A. L. Neiman opened Neiman-Marcus with the intent of bringing the finest goods to customers in the West. While Neiman-Marcus was in some ways a traditional department store like Macy's, it always had a flair for the flamboyant. Nowhere but Neiman-Marcus could customers buy submarines, robots, or airplanes. Neiman-Marcus established a reputation, as Dallas citizens might say, "as big as Texas."
As the twentieth century progressed, some department stores consolidated into groups or "chains" for buying clout and protection from rival onslaught. Federated Department Stores formed in 1929 as a holding company for several department stores, such as Abraham & Straus and F&R Lazarus. For more than seventy years, Federated has offered the protection of consolidation to family-owned stores. It is one of the largest chains in the nation and includes such standards as Macy's and Bloomingdale's.
In big cities, department stores were seemingly unlimited in the products they could provide customers. But to many Americans—farmers in the Midwest, for example—those stores were out of reach. Some enterprising businessmen decided they would simply take the department store to the customer. While most department stores got into mail order at one time or another, none succeeded like Montgomery Ward, Sears and Roebuck, and J.C. Penney's.
The first man to capitalize on the mail order business was Aaron Montgomery Ward, a former salesman for Marshall Field's. In 1872 he began a mail order business, catering chiefly to Grangers at first. Grangers, or officially the Patrons of Husbandry, were groups of Midwestern farmers organized to protest the exorbitant freight and storage rates of railroads. They also protested the high mark-ups of goods at general stores, which, by location they were almost bound to patronize. Montgomery Ward capitalized on that Granger frustration and devoted itself to serving American agrarians at prices less than the general store. One of Ward's first catalogs, in fact, offered buyers an official Granger hat, a tall-crowned affair made of "all wool" and costing $1.25.
Of course, Wards could not have succeeded without the famous catalog. Its first issues were only four-to-six pages, crowded with pictures and price lists. Later issues were more organized. Ward updated them every year. It may have been to Ward's chagrin, or perhaps to his satisfaction that his business had made it another year, that out-of-date catalogs usually got relegated to the outhouse.
Montgomery Ward drew its chief competition from Sears, Roebuck and Company. By the mid-1890s, Richard W. Sears had teamed with Alva C. Roebuck to create Sears, Roebuck and Co. Sears had begun a career selling watches in 1886, but by 1895 he and Roebuck were making a lucrative living through catalog sales. Through diligent warehouse organization (which Sears hired out) and the establishment of regional fulfillment houses, Sears, Roebuck and Co. could promise quick turnaround on orders.
Perhaps more so than the Wards catalog, the Sears catalog, which by 1897 was running at more than 500 pages, became an American icon. Americans came to know it as the "Wish Book." From its pages customers could buy hammers and nails, dresses, hats, corsets, pots and pans, soaps, rugs. They could even buy—by ordering component parts and assembling them on site—a complete house with indoor plumbing.
Both Sears and Ward fared well through World War I, but the 1920s brought a new phenomenon. Just as Henry Ford's mass production of automobiles revolutionized freeway systems and suburban living, it impacted catalog sales as well. The catalog giants discovered that the automobile freed rural Americans from the nearby country store. On weekends they could drive to cities and partake of the big department stores, which was infinitely more exciting than leafing through catalogs. Almost simultaneously, both Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck decided to get into the retail department store business and attract their share of urban trade. That business served as a complement to continued catalog sales.
Another catalog giant, J.C. Penney, entered mail-order sales in the reverse way. In 1902, with the backing of two silent partners, James Cash Penney opened a dry goods and general store in the mining town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. Penney was the son of a Baptist preacher, and he practiced his religion through business. He called his store the "Golden Rule" store (photos of which grace almost any modern Penney's store), and he offered fair prices, good service, and late store hours. He immediately made a profit, which enabled him to open more stores in the next few years. In actuality, J.C. Penney became one of the first multi-store companies, totaling 1,600 stores by 1950. Larger Penney's department stores became mall anchors, and in the 1960s began to draw fire from such companies as Dillards, Brown-Dunkin, now simply Dillards. J.C. Penney lived until 1971. He saw the company's move into catalog sales in the preceding decades. Ironically, at the turn of the twenty-first century Sears is out of the catalog business and Montgomery Ward is out of business altogether, leaving J.C. Penney as the major American catalog retailer.
Chain stores are the little siblings to big department stores. While in fact they contain departments, they are usually located on one level and are much smaller than urban multi-floor department stores. As such the U.S. Census bureau does not officially recognize them as department stores. Their rise, however, has impacted traditional department stores.
The grandfather of American chain stores was Frank W. Woolworth. In 1878, while clerking in the Watertown, New York, store of Moore and Smith, Woolworth learned the value of selling special goods at five cents or less. With money borrowed from one of his employers, Woolworth opened his own five-cent store, and made more than $200 profit before closing it. He periodically opened and closed stores, amassing a personal wealth of more than $2,000. In the process he realized that customers would also buy "more expensive" items for ten cents. Thus Woolworth created the purely American "five-and-dime" stores.
By 1895, Woolworth had more than twenty-five stores garnering more than $1 million in annual sales. Realizing the potential of five-and-dimes, other stores followed suit: Kress, Kresge, T.G.&Y., and Ben Franklin to name a few. Most of those stores, however, were regional. Only Woolworths had a national base and widespread recognition.
By the 1960s, with suburbia rapidly eclipsing established cities, malls were becoming the fashionable place to shop. And few malls could survive without at least one full-fledged department store, a chain store, and a five-and-dime to anchor them down. But, like early department stores, malls were the provinces of large cities. Retailers soon saw a need for mid-range, hybrid stores that blended the departmentalization and variety of department stores, the accessibility of chain stores, and the relative value of five-and-dimes. Into that void stepped discount stores, direct forerunners of the superstores of the 1990s. Those stores include Kmart, the upscale Target, and Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart originator Sam Walton got into the retail business in the 1950s, leasing a Ben Franklin store in Arkansas, making it turn a nice profit, then going into business for himself. Based on his experience working in five-and-dimes, Walton was able to negotiate good deals from producers by buying merchandise in bulk, then selling to customers at discount prices. Walton's target competition was Kmart, which had grown from the Kresge five-and-dimes. Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962. By 1985 he had 859 stores in twenty-two states. By the early 1990s, Wal-Mart was pioneering "supercenters"—extra-large stores that included full-size grocery stores, photography studios, McDonald's franchises, hair salons, and other specialty shops. Sales clerks and shift managers frequently got around the huge stores on in-line skates. In an unusual social phenomenon, Wal-Mart stores, with their toy aisles, arcade rooms, and fast food shops, became substitute amusement parks for millions of kids in rural America.
Walton died in 1992, but his chain continued to grow. By 1998 Wal-Mart boasted more than 3,000 stores in the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe. Wal-Mart critics have charged that the discount/ department stores have caused the death of many small downtown areas by attracting business to peripheral locations. Some chambers of commerce have refused to let Wal-Mart open in their town unless it did so in or near downtown. Other critics have charged that Wal-Mart has marketed goods made by child labor in foreign sweat-shops, even as the store advertised its "Made in America" campaign.
Author Bob Ortega has said, however, that Wal-Mart's legacy runs deeper than a chamber of commerce fight. By targeting the bottom-line—both his own and the consumer's—Sam Walton revolutionized department/ chain-store style shopping. He had done nothing less than Henry Ford had when he married the assembly line with automobile production. Now all types of stores, from booksellers to video-rental stores, practice bulk buying, offering large selections and discount prices, all packaged in attractive, easily accessible stores. Wal-Mart stores have also forced traditional department stores to rethink marketing strategies to keep middle-class shoppers spending money in their stores and not at Wal-Mart.
Nevertheless, discount and discount/department stores have severely cut into the profits of traditional department stores. The fact that they are still centered in urban centers and rarely in the suburbs and even less frequently in rural areas has isolated department stores even in the age of the automobile. When department stores were novel and automobile travel special, a trip to the city was fun. Now, increased traffic in urban areas and consumers having less time to shop has contributed to the decline in the popularity of the department store as a destination. Customers report a preference for specialty stores, like Toys-R-Us or Barnes and Noble, and discount/department stores in strip shopping centers. They prefer to drive to a store, immediately get what they want, and leave, rather than face parking problems or a maze of poorly marked sales areas in department stores.
Department stores are responding, however. Some of the major companies are experimenting with centralized checkouts for customer convenience, better signage, and relocation of popular departments close to entrances. Sears has started focusing more on marketing the sale of tools and appliances, longtime strong sellers for the company, and less on clothes and soft goods. Other department stores have cornered higher-end brand names, especially in clothing, that are unavailable at discount supercenters.
Department stores began in the mid-nineteenth century when transportation enabled wholesalers and retailers to offer a wide variety of goods to urban buyers. Catalog sales did the same thing for isolated rural Americans. When individual transportation became widely available to all Americans in the 1920s, retail stores, even those built on catalog empires, had to find new ways to vie for business. In the 1960s and 1970s, Wal-Mart and Kmart brought a low-end, discount/department store alternative to middle America. Those supercenters offered busy shoppers an effective alternative to driving to department stores.
Bibliography
Federated Department Stores. Home page at http://www.federated-fds.com.
Groner, Alex, ed., The American Heritage History of American Business and Industry. New York: American Heritage, 1972.
Latham, Frank B. 1872–1972: A Century of Serving Consumers; The Story of Montgomery Ward. Chicago: Montgomery Ward, 1972.
Merrick, Amy, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, and Ann Zimmerman. "Are Department Stores Dead?," The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition, May 2002. Available from http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com.
Ortega, Bob. In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America. New York: Times Business, 1998.
Plunkett-Powell, Karen. Remembering Woolworth's: A Nostalgic History of the World's Most Famous Five-and-Dime. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
Trimble, Vance H. Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man. New York: Dutton, 1990.
Weil, Gordon L. Sears, Roebuck, U.S.A.: The Great American Catalog Store and How it Grew. New York: Stein and Day, 1977.
—R. Steven Jones
Wikipedia:
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, jewellery, 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.
History
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 Le 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, is 'Austin's' in Derry, Northern Ireland, which has maintained its original position on The 'Diamond' in Derry's city centre since 1830.
As Le Bon Marché evolved into a fully fledged department store in the early 1850s, Delany's New Mart opened in 1853 in Dublin, Ireland on Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street). What made Delany's different from most department stores of its time was its purpose-built nature; unlike others it had not evolved gradually from a smaller shop on site. Constructed to a lavish standard on the city's principal street, it was designed to rival the biggest and best in Europe. Acquired by the Clery family in the late 19th century, both the store and Imperial Hotel located in its upper floors were completely destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising. However the store reopened in 1922, this time across numerous floors, as the famous Clerys department store that stands today, housed in a striking modern neoclassical building based on Selfridges of London.
Another claimant to the title of "World's first department store" is Bainbridges in Newcastle upon Tyne, founded in 1838 as a drapers and fashion shop but on record as collecting its takings by department as early as 1849. The ledger from that year still survives in the archives of the John Lewis Partnership who bought the store in 1952, and retained its original name until 2002 when the store was rebranded as John Lewis Newcastle.
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 was the second-largest department store in the world prior to converting to 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 have become Macy's stores, effective 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, bridal registries, 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 departments--even a store's restaurant--is 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.
Countries
Argentina
In Buenos Aires, upscale department stores came during the early years of the 20th century. Gath
& Chávez opened in 1905 and Harrods
Australia
Although there were a number of department stores in Australia for much of the 20th Century, today Myer and David Jones, located nationally, are practically the national department stores duopoly in Australia. Other retail chain stores such as Target, Kmart and Big W, also located nationally, are considered to be Australia's discount department stores. Harris Scarfe (trading under the Allens brand in New South Wales and the ACT), though only operating in four states and one territory, is a department store using both the large full-line and small discount department store formats. Most department stores in Australia have their own credit card companies, each having their own benefits while the discount department stores do not have their own credit card rights.
Canada
From its origins in the fur trade, the Hudson's Bay
Company is the largest department store operator in Canada, and the oldest corporation in North America, with locations across the country. It also owns Zellers,
another major Canadian department store. Other department stores in Canada are:
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. These types 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
- Carrion
- Dorian's, Mexican Department stores present only in Mexico and El Salvador.
- Siman
Finland
The most famous department store chains in Finland are Stockmann, a listed company, and Sokos, owned by a nationwide retailing cooperative. The Stockmann department store in central Helsinki is the biggest department store in the entire Nordic countries and a famous landmark of Helsinki.
France
France's major department stores are Galeries Lafayette and Le Printemps, which both have flagship stores on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris and branches around the country. Part of the same group as Galeries Lafayette, the BHV (Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville) has a more mid-market clientele. The oldest department store in France (and maybe in the world) is still Le Bon Marché in Paris. La Samaritaine was bought by LVMH and closed in 2005.
Indonesia
Indonesia's largest department store chain is Ramayana with over ninety branches across the country. The same group also operated under Robinsons and Cayaha (acquired in 1990s), all targeting the lower income sectors. Other local department store is Matahari, now owned by Lippo Group. The group previously managed to trade under Mega M, Galeria and Walmart brands, all of which have been progressively closed. Soon, the group will be opening the first Parisian Department Store in Indonesia. The middle up segment is mainly occupied by Metro Department Store originated from Singapore and Sogo. In 2007 saw the re-opening of Jakarta's Seibu, poised to be the largest and second most upscale department store in Indonesia after Harvey Nichols, which will be opened in 2008 at the same shopping centre.
Ireland
Originally the Republic of Ireland had two department stores, Clerys and Arnotts, the latter considered to be one of the five largest stores in Britain and Ireland. However several large retailers now own chains of department stores, such as:
The most upmarket chain is undoubtedly Brown Thomas, founded as a haberdasher's in 1849 on Dublin's Grafton Street. The company (which belongs to the same group as the UK's Selfridges or Canada's Holt Renfrew) bought its long time competitor across the street, Switzers, in 1995. BT then moved to the larger site. It also acquired and re-branded the former Switzer stores in Cork (formerly Cash's), Limerick (formerly Todd's) and Galway (formerly Moon's).
There are also many self-owned department stores around the country, especially in rural towns.
The British department store, Debenhams, purchased the Roches Stores chain in 2006, closed two stores and rebranded the others. The opening of the Dundrum Shopping Centre in Dublin's suburbs saw the arrival of two more British stores, House of Fraser and Harvey Nichols.
Japan
Some of the largest department stores in Japan include Daimaru (J. Front Retailing), Hankyu (H2O Retailing), Hanshin (H2O Retailing), Isetan (Mitsukoshi-Isetan Holdings), Marui, Matsuzakaya (J. Front Retailing), Matsuya, Mitsukoshi (Mitsukoshi-Isetan Holdings), Printemps Ginza, Seibu (Millennium Retailing), Sogo (Millennium Retailing), Takashimaya, Tobu, and Tokyu (109). Many are owned and operated in conjunction with private railway companies. Recently, business integration has been successive.
Germany
In Germany there are a number of department stores. There are three big department store companies, Karstadt (part of Arcandor AG, also operating the KaDeWe and two Wertheim department stores in Berlin and the Alsterhaus in Hamburg), Hertie and Kaufhof (part of the Metro AG). There are also some smaller independent department stores. Some department stores only sell clothing. The biggest clothing department store chain is C&A. Larger department stores in Germany usually contain a self-service restaurant, clothing departments, a toy department, a department for computer and electronics, a small book department (for bestsellers), a department for newspapers and magazines and a food department (like a supermarket).
One of the most famous department stores in Germany is the Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe, German for department store of the west) which is located in Berlin.
Malaysia
Since the 1980s, Malaysia has opened its doors to many foreign chains, such as Tesco, Carrefour, Aeon (JUSCO), Makro, Sogo, etc. All of these foreign stores must join ventures with local partners.
Many of home grown department store chains include Parkson, Giant, Metrojaya, Cold Storage, Sunshine (SuiWah), The Store, Kamdar, Mydin,Dua Puluh Sen (DPS) etc.
According to the Malaysian chart, Dua Puluh Sen has increase their quality of standard which lead them gaining market share in the retailing industry in Malaysia. This had made DPS the leading department store in Malaysia and also South East Asia.
Mexico
Mexico has a number of department stores, including the Mexican chains Liverpool, El Palacio de Hierro, Suburbia, Fabricas de Francia, Dorian's, C&A, Sanborns, Sears Mexico. There are also foreign stores such as JCPenney, and Zara.
Panama
Panama's first department stores such as Bazaar Francés, La Dalia and La Villa de Paris started as textile retailers at the turn of the nineteenth century. Later on in the twentieth century these eventually gave way to stores such as Felix B. Maduro, Sarah Panamá, Figali, Danté, Sears, Gran Morrison and smaller ones such as Bon Bini, Cocos, El Lider, Piccolo and Clubman among others. Of these only Felix B. Maduro (usually referred to as Felix by locals) and Danté remain strong. All the others have either folded or declined although Cocos has managed to secure a good position in the market. Today major department stores aside from these two include Steven's and Collin's. There are also many discount department stores such as Conway, La Onda, Dorian's, Saks, Madison Store and El Titan among others.
Philippines
Philippines' most popular department stores are: SM Supermalls and Robinsons Mall. SM Supermalls have 11 malls all over in the Metro Manila named, SM Valenzuela, SM City San Lazaro, SM City Sta. Mesa, SM City Dasmarinas, SM City Sucat, SM City Fairview, SM Southmall Las Pinas, SM Megamall & the most biggest and popular SM Supermall all over in the Philippines, SM Mall Of Asia. 10 malls all over in the Luzon (North, South & Central) named, SM City Sta. Rosa, SM City Lipa, SM City Marilao, SM City Clark, SM City Pampanga, SM City Baguio, SM City Lucena, SM Supercenter Molino, SM City Batangas & SM City Bacoor. 3 malls all over in the Visayas named, SM City Iloilo, SM City Bacolod & SM City Cebu, and 2 malls all over in the Mindanao named, SM City Cagayan & SM City Davao.
The Netherlands
The most well-known departement stores in The Netherlands are De Bijenkorf,
HEMA, Maison de Bonneterie,
Thailand
The most popular department stores in Thailand are Central
Department Store which are managed by Central Group. These are the list of
department stores in Thailand
- Central Department Store - has 15 branches and 5 more branches in the future (2007)
- The Mall - has 6 branches (2007)
- Robinson Department Store has 19 branches (2007)
- Zen Department Store has 1 branches (2007)
Russia
Arguably the most famous Department store in Russia is the GUM in Moscow or the Petrovsky Passage. In Saint Petersburg there is The Passage extremely popular.
Singapore
Most department stores are clustered around Orchard Road in Singapore. The most well-known department stores in Singapore are BHG (formally known as Seiyu), Isetan, John Little, Marks & Spencer, Metro, Mustafa, OG, Robinson & Co., Takashimaya and Tangs. Some of their branch outlets can also be found in the sub-urban shopping malls.
South Korea
The three most prevalent chains are Hyundai, Lotte, and Shinsegae, which opened in 1930 as Mitsukoshi Gyeongseong store and is the oldest department store chain. Lotte is the largest, operating more than 20 stores.
Spain
Spain is dominated by one department store chain, El Corte Inglés, founded in 1934. These stores tend to be vast buildings, selling a very broad range of products.
Sweden
The largest department store chain in Sweden is Åhléns, which operates stores throughout the country. Its flagship Stockholm store, Åhléns City, is the largest department store in Sweden. Other large stores are Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm and Gothenburg, and PUB in Stockholm.
Switzerland
The Swiss retail market is dominated by two consumers' cooperatives, Migros and Coop, which also run department stores. Migros operates 12 upscale Globus department stores and 34 mid-range Migros MMM centers across the country. Since the acquisitions of EPA in 2002, Coop operates its mid-range department stores under the brand Coop City. Manor operates department stores throughout the country. Jelmoli and Loeb operate upscale department stores in Zurich and Berne respectively.
United Kingdom
Most of the early department stores in London started out as small drapery stores which bought up neighbouring stores and increased their range of products.
- 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. This was eventually taken over by House of Fraser and closed for business in 2006.
- 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.
However, Kendals in Manchester can lay claim to being the oldest department store in the UK and perhaps in the world. Beginning as a small shop owned by S. and J. Watts in 1796, its sold a variety of goods. Kendal Milne and Faulkner purchased the business in 1835. Expanding the space, rather than use it as a typical warehouse simply to showcase textiles, it became a vast bazaar. Serving Manchester's upmarket clientel for over 200 years, it was recently purchased by the House of Fraser - although most Mancunians still refer to it as Kendals.
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. Such stores as Marks & Spencer, Britain's largest clothes retailer, and Debenhams, would therefore not be included in the British definition of a department store.
United States
In the United States, companies such as Macy's,
Gottschalks, Dillard's, Nordstrom, Sears, and J.C.
Penney are considered department stores, while retail brands such as
Upscale Department Store
Characteristics of a typical upscale department store may include:
- Sale of brand name perfumes and beauty supplies, like Burberry, Calvin Klein or M•A•C at the main entrance, with specialists in cosmetics there to assist customers with applying and selecting makeup.
- General sale of name brand clothes above an average price level, such as Dior, Chanel, Versace, Lacoste, etc.
- When items are discounted, the price resembles that of an average priced item at a lower scale department store. (Example: A pair of jeans on sale for$80 at Nordstrom, which is an average price at Macy's.)
- Sale of small household appliances like blenders, or small electronic items such as portable radios.
- Specialized services or subset businesses such as personal shopping assistance, salons, restaurants, and/or travel agencies.
Some upscale department stores that operate in the United States include national chains like Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus, and Barneys New York, as well as regional retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Von Maur, Lord & Taylor, and formerly Marshall Field's. Depending upon location, Macy's, Dillard's, and Belk are sometimes considered upscale department stores, but the chains overall are often viewed as being situated somewhere between midscale and upscale.
need to address the location to find the store in ny on lower manhattan.
Mid-Range Department Store
Characteristics of a mid-range department store may include:
- Sale of cosmetics.
- Sale of some brand names, with greater emphasis on private label brands.
- Sale of accessories.
- Sale of some small household appliances.
- Sale of furniture in larger locations.
Comparison to Upscale Department Store
- Sale of cosmetics but generally not brand name. Fragrances and beauty supplies may be placed further into the interior of the store, without cosmetic specialists at the counters.
- Greater proportion of moderately-priced brand names.
- Accessories and purses aren't upscale brand names, with greater proportion of lesser-known or private label branded items.
Mid-range department stores that operate in the United States include national chains JCPenney and Kohl's. Regional chains such as Gottschalks and Mervyns in the western United States, and The Bon-Ton and associated stores in the northern part of the country are also among this grouping of stores.
As noted in details of upscale department stores, Macy's, Dillard's and Belk vary in price points and relative consideration as upscale or mid-range versus local competitors, depending upon location. Some larger locations in affluent areas often carry significant selections of brand name products including brand name accessories and fragrances kept in glass cases, and usually have cosmetic specialists in the beauty department. Brands at above-average price points, if offered at all, are generally limited and full product lines of such brands are not typically available. Smaller and more remote store locations — often, the legacy of acquisitions of smaller retailers — may concentrate squarely on moderately-priced merchandise. California-based Gottschalks mirrors these chains, though in a specific region with little presence in major metropolitan areas. Nationally known JCPenney has incorporated elements of upscale stores such as salons and custom home decorating services, along with offering optical shops, portrait photography studios and designer-produced private labels.
The national chain Sears is also in this category, but often is considered a lower grade mid-range department store due to marketing a higher proportion of private label and lesser-known label goods in apparel and housewares segments. Sears differs from most mid-range department store chains in its common inclusion of departments for hardware, garden and outdoor equipment, automotive service, and large appliances and electronics — product segments more typical of discount or so-called "big box" retailers.
Discount Department Store/ Super Store
- Sells cosmetics, generally not name brand.
- Generally doesn't sell name brands.
- Sells accessories, generally not name brand.
- Sells small household appliances.
- Sells toys, electronics and video games.
- Sells household necessities.
- The "super-store" variant usually sells food products and has a "one stop shop" vibe.
Comparison to Mid-Range Department Store
- Sells fewer major brand names.
- Offers a wider variety of products.
- More likely to anchor a power centre than an indoor shopping mall.
Some discount department stores that operate in the United States include: ShopKo, Kmart and Wal-Mart. Although Shop Ko and Kmart are more upscale than Wal-Mart; further, Wal-Mart could be considered a "super discount department store". Target is also in this category but may be considered a more upscale Discount Department Store because it puts a greater emphasis on current fashion and on special merchandise lines from well-known designers such as Isaac Mizrahi and Thomas O'Brien.
Off-price retailer
- Most products are name-branded.
- Products may be over-runs, seconds, or last season's stock liquidated from department stores.
- Product mix typically emphasizes women's clothing and may include men's clothing, children's clothing, shoes, accessories, perfume, toys, housewares, or packaged gourmet food.
- Stores are most frequently located in power centres but may also appears in shopping malls.
Off-price retail department stores include T.J. Maxx, Factory
2-U, Century 21, Gabriel
Brothers, Ross Dress For Less,
Gallery
 David Jones department store in Sydney. |
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