Are Department Stores Dinosaurs?

Great Debates
21

I loved that analogy about stores and actresses. Very accurate to me for the Los Angeles stores. They did forget I.Magnin’s little brother – Joseph Magnin’s. I preferred Joseph’s and shopped at their Century City store and at the tiny branch inside a hotel near me. I got such a great deal on an Emmanuelle Kahn skirt that wore to pieces. Sigh.

I remember buying Jordan almonds at the Robinson’s candy counter. I adored the perfume department in Bullocks where you didn’t have to run the gauntlet of perfume sprayers. It’s what made me start to collect vintage perfume factices. Elegance!

I now do 90% of my shopping online. Most stores are pits. Yuck.

22

Saunders’ stats show that department stores have fallen from 14.1% of US retail sales in 1993 to just 9.8% ten years later, to 5.7% in 2013, and to only 2.6% last year. Total sales by US department stores are expected to fall from $103 billion in 2018 to only $81 billion by 2026, according to projections from Coresight Research, an analytics firm that tracks the sector.

How America’s once great department stores became a dying breed

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/27/business/macys-store-closings-department-stores-outlook/index.html

That is a big decline!

23

The heydey of Big Department Stores serving as “anchors” at malls is certainly declining, from what I can see. The one nearest us does have a Macy’s, but the other two are J.C. Penney (to be fair, that qualifies, it’s just not as “upscale” as Macy’s) and Target. I’ve seen others where the anchors are places like Best Buy or even WalMart.

I do still shop at Macy’s for clothing. They tend to have nicer “career” things than other stores. They have a wider variety of clothing from ultra-casual to very fancy, in one place, than smaller stores. They’re also good for makeup, accessories, and perfumes (not that I use perfume). Their selection of towels beats that of any other place at the same mall (and can be augmented with online purchases). They are also a good destination for nicer housewares (china, stoneware etc.). The Herald Square store is fantastic in that you can find ANYTHING you need there; as a plus sized woman, it’s fantastic (half a floor dedicated entirely to stuff that will fit me); I shopped there regularly when I lived in NYC and still like to find time to pop in when I am in town and have a chance.

I wouldn’t shop there for most other stuff - furniture, toys etc. Other stores simply do all that better.

The in-person shopping experience has definitely declined in decent years. Staffing levels are a joke. I was at a Nordstrom last spring, looking to get fitted for a bra, and could not find anyone to help me (that has been my go-to for such things for decades). Their selection of hard-to-find shoe sizes has declined too (ditto). I tried shopping at the nearby Macy’s for some things for Christmas, had major trouble finding a checkout that was open, saw a massive line, and just put my things back on the rack and left (then I ordered them online for in-store pickup). I a) had better things to do than waste half an hour in line, and b) literally could not have stood up all that long (blood pressure issues; would have had to sit on the floor after about 5 minutes).

I think such stores will continue to decline, and need to reinvent themselves somehow in order to survive. I hope they last, because to me at least they really fill a need.

24

Oh gosh, yeah, being taken into Philly by Mom for back-to-school shopping at Strawbridge & Clothier! For getting a nice dress or coat or something of that ilk, mind you. The local Woolworth’s was considered plenty good enough for everyday clothes, underwear etc.

IME New Zealand cities also still have a few old-style department stores with some of the old-style glamor. They sure ain’t no chain stores, though.

Now I want some fresh roasted peanuts in the shell from the Woolworth’s lunch counter. Anybody heading out to 1971 in their time machine and can give me a lift?

25

Wheaton Mall?

26

One of the Macy’s on the potential closure list is their flagship west coast store in Union Square in San Francisco. San Francisco’s shopping core is already hollowing-out and struggling, with the departures of other major retailers like Nordstrom, as well as smaller businesses. I think the foot traffic thing is really the issue, at least for SF - with empty office buildings adjacent to the shopping district, and residents not bothering to go across town for items they can get delivered to their doorstep. The mayor’s tone-deaf response is not encouraging. The only way for retail in that area to come back is to somehow get more people living in those empty office buildings - the thousands of office workers that sustained those businesses are not returning.

And yeah, I believe indoor shopping malls and departments stores focusing on luxury goods and higher-end details are dinosaurs. The last new enclosed mall was completed in 2006.

27

Yeah, maybe they’re dinosaurs. I’m a musician (keyboardist) and rarely go to my local music stores. Recently I went, I has started looking for a new keyboard workstation and thought it would be good to go see some new equipment in person before I dropped my cash. If they had what I was looking for I would likely have picked it up. But they had virtually no interesting stock. To me, that’s the only purpose you serve if you’re a brick-n-mortar store, you have stock that real people can examine! If you don’t have that you have no propose at all.

Like, Best Buy, is still a pretty good store. . . because they keep a good stock of the latest stuff.

It kills me when I talk to a sales person and they don’t have something in stock and they offer to order it for me. . . why would I do that?

28

It depends on where you are. Here in Corpus Christi the mall is doing great. Every time I pass by on my commute the parking lot is full. When I go there’s plenty of people, even in some of the department stores. We have Dillards and J.C Penney that are both doing well. The stores are well maintained, well lit, have a lot of merchandise of all kinds, and so people go there to shop.

Macy’s is there as well, right in the middle of the mall, so there’s no excuses about it being at the end of the mall that no one goes to or anything like that, and is doing terribly. Mostly because the store is poorly maintained. The escalators are frequently not working. The elevators are scary and set in a part of the store where you have to walk through a winding area that looks like it’s supposed to be for maintenance. Many of the shelves are empty. Selection is limited. The air condition is either turned off or doesn’t work, with Macy’s tending to be what feels like about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the mall. I don’t know if the Corpus Christi store is one of the ones on the list to be closed, but it wouldn’t surprise if it was.

29

You can’t compete with online. Gen X here and I like shopping in stores, I can feel the stuff I am buying, get an idea of the size, see how it might fit, etc.
But I can go online and buy the exact color and size I want. And most online retailers allow quick returns if I find out it doesn’t fit me. And I know whether they have it or not without going.
I like going to one store and getting what I like. I don’t like going from store to store hoping they have it. And nothing makes me madder than a store inventory saying they have something or even five of something and then you go there and they don’t, and the staff just stares at you.

30

The narrative surrounding dying malls is nuanced and multifaceted. Urban malls face challenges, but affluent suburban malls continue to thrive. According to Coresight Research, foot traffic at top-tier malls is above pre-pandemic levels , and store occupancy rates are 95% or more .

I love the ambiance of nice malls. I grew up near the Moorestown Mall, and the Cherry Hill Mall (the first U.S. indoor, climate-controlled shopping center east of the Mississippi River), in South Jersey. I was dragged kicking and screaming to them both, by my older sister when I was a young kid, but thereafter learned to love them.

Malls offer advantages over massive open-air shopping destinations. You can shop without worrying about rain or sunburn, and malls often provide comfortable seating areas and host enjoyable events.

While online shopping and changing consumer habits have impacted big city flagship department stores (my favorite places to shop), I, too, would be heartbroken if malls were to fade away. They hold a unique place in our shopping experiences.

I love the aroma of roasted nuts in department store nut departments. I remember my first experience was at Sears & Roebuck, in Camden, NJ, when I was 3yo. Mmm mmm good!

31

That thriving suburban mall describes La Palmera here in Corpus. Given the topic, the irony is that Macy’s is the only store in the whole mall that isn’t thriving.

32

TBF, I will often do that if a store I trust offers to order on my behalf, because:

  • they’ll be charging me the same price I was willing to pay for the item then and there if they’d had it in stock;
  • I’d be having to wait for it anyway, whether I order it myself or let them order it for me;
  • I’m happy to let the store deal with the hassle of placing the order, receiving the shipment, returning the item if it’s not as advertised, etc.

Basically, I’m just paying a certain amount of premium to have the brick-and-mortar store serve as my personal shipping department for online orders, but I’m okay with that if the price difference is reasonable.

33

In my small city, two malls are generally crowded and sometimes successful, but have still lost some big anchor stores, although both have one middle class department store (down from three). Some other malls are dinosaurs; those with a Walmart have tended to survive as longitudinal stores with no or minimal interior area. The big box places are always busy. The fancy six story downtown department store closed forty years ago.

34

But they get that advantage at a huge cost. Its expensive to climate control all that indoor space. That’s passed along as rent to the tenants, who pass it along in prices to the consumer, who look at mall pricing and then bring up Amazon on their phone to see if they can get the same thing cheaper online. And often, they can. That means less sales, which means higher prices, which means…

I say this as someone who lives in Minnesota, where indoor malls were founded and is the home to the Mall of America.

I miss the department stores of my childhood and young adult hood - those “fancy multi-story downtown stores” that had candy counters and china departments and a place to order stationary. But I don’t think they are coming back. The department store of today is Walmart and Target.

35

I agree. The grand department stores, once bustling with elegance and attentive service, now linger in the sepia-toned corridors of memory. Their heyday, like a fading photograph, belongs to decades past.

I reveled in their opulence—the gleaming displays, the courteous and attentive staff, the aromatic nuts and confections. Yet, when it came time to part with my dollars, practicality intervened. The big-box giants—Walmart, Target, and their ilk—stood ready, wielding price tags that undercut the grandeur of those venerable halls.

I loved to shop at the grand stores, I just didn’t like to buy from them (because I’m a penny-pinching cheapskate).

And then there’s the online behemoth, Amazon—an entire marketplace at our fingertips. With a few clicks, we summon goods to our doorsteps, bypassing marble-clad counters, the chandeliers, the grandest pipe organ in the world, the rooftop chrystal palace restaurants, and more. The allure of convenience and cost-effectiveness prevails. Like a dirty secret, I do almost all my non-grocery shopping at the Big A, but I’m not proud about that.

Herein lies the paradox: We forsake the plush carpets and polished brass for the allure of affordability. The bottom line whispers its pragmatic truth—I, too, prefer lower prices over premium shopping experiences. And it seems I’m not alone; the masses flock to the same pragmatic hymn.

Yet, as the escalators stand still and the once-grand pianos gather dust, a wistful nostalgia lingers. The grand stores, with their ornate façades and whispered secrets, remain etched in our collective memory. In this age of efficiency, maybe we yearn for a touch of their faded glamour—a longing that transcends mere commerce.

Ah, the grand old stores—they live on, not in square footage, but in the echoes of our hearts.

I feel the same nostalgic longing for Horn & Hardart—the first, and still best fast food establishment.

36

Even if you liked what the grand department stores offer(ed), and are insensitive to price, the reality is people stole their good ideas a long time ago.

I had little use for the dozen counters selling expensive cosmetics at the front of the store. But if you needed to be pampered and have an attractive woman soft sell you a set of makeup, the department store had you covered. Now, a lot of basic pharmacies do the same thing.

There are still a few malls in Toronto where you can sequentially ride seven or eight escalators in a row. But that admittedly small thrill is no longer easily available.

37

It’s been a while since I’ve been to the cosmetic counter in a department store but I don’t know any basic pharmacies that sell Lancome or Elizabeth Arden. Or that give makeovers or match the colors to your skin tone. Maybe Sephora and Ulta do some of that - but there’s a reason some brands are known as “drugstore brands”

38

The pampering, but maybe not every product. But Sephora covers the same territory, saving you a trip to the fancy place.

39

Amen. The first place I ever ate by myself was the Horn and Hardart’s on 42nd street in NY. I have the Horn & Hardart’s book, and have seen the documentary about them which appears available on Max and Prime.

40

Did such places ever exist outside of the largest cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco? I’m pretty sure there were never any in south Texas, not even back in the 50s. I doubt that even San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston had such stores, at least not within the last 50 years or so. Maybe back in the 50s? If I had to guess I’d say the closest one to where I grew up would have been in Chicago, or maybe Mexico City, and probably had already closed down by the time I was born in 1977.