Are Department Stores Dinosaurs?

Great Debates
61

Small world! (or maybe we’re just really big).

I grew up within walking distance of the Moorestown Mall (and just a tad further to the Cherry Hill Mall). Where and when were you in that area? We may have been neighbors.

Yes, the MM duck pond and the CHM bird cage were quite nice; adding a cool, pastoral ambiance to both malls.

Do you remember (from many years ago) the big Monkey Cage at the Moorestown Mall? That was great! What a great exhibit for a mall. I mean…who doesn’t like monkeys!?! :monkey: :monkey: :monkey:

As I recall, the cagey monkeys escaped from their big Monkey Cage a time or two…or three. “Allegedly” they may have nipped a few mall shoppers during their escapes (i.e. ripped the flesh from the bone of hordes of terrified shoppers). Rabies? Who can know for sure? But, those monkeys sure were cute. :monkey_face:

I’m told the big Monkey Cage is no longer at the Moorestown Mall. I don’t know why.

62

So the monkeys are freely roaming the mall?

63

Yes, but the leopards keep their population under control.

64

In the Twin Cities it was Dayton’s. A nice dining spot for lunch, a salon for hair, a bridal shop, the Oval Room - where you could buy your Chanel and Dior - but plenty of room for more mass produced brands of the high end variety. China and home goods that would please a bride filling a registry who wanted everything from Spode to Fiestaware. In the basement there was a bakery, drugstore, and the clearance section.

65

And what happened to Dayton’s?

In 1969, Dayton’s merged with Michigan department store chain Hudson’s to form the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. The Target division of the company eventually grew so large that in 2000 the corporation was renamed the Target Corporation. Target Corporation had acquired Chicago-based Marshall Field’s in 1990 and rebranded Dayton’s stores as Marshall Field’s stores in 2001 in an effort to focus more on discount retailing. In 2004, Marshall Field’s was purchased by May Department Stores, which subsequently merged in 2005 with Macy’s, turning the remaining Marshall Field’s stores into Macy’s department stores.

66

I think you’re hilarious.

“A monkey looks up, and sees a banana. And that’s as far as it goes. But a visionary looks up, and sees the mall.”

67

Two thoughts:

  1. that does sound challenging to do in the 80s but seems trivial to do in the 2000s using inventory management software.

  2. IKEA manages to operate with a pretty diverse range of products too, as one example that quickly comes to mind.

68

You’re right about #1 but I’ll disagree respectfully about #2. Ikea does very little seasonal merchandise. If a Flugharmer doesn’t sell within a month, they just keep it on the floor until it does sell. When they get the stock down to one or two, they put the final items on clearance.

As for #1, if they had survived into this era, it wouldn’t have been such a problem, but by the late 70s-early 80s, shopping tastes had changed enough to put the big downtown stores right in the metaphorical path of the Chicxulub asteroid. Fewer people working and living downtown, malls and their specialty stores rendering the idea of one store with 100 different departments irrelevant, and big box retailers vastly undercutting prices on stuff like furniture and appliances.

69

The other thing is that the big downtown department stores became more valuable for the real estate than they were as stores.

70

I have fond memories of the restaurant at Penney’s when I was a kid. My mom used to take us there occasionally and I would get a patty melt.

The ones at K-Mart and similar stores were more like diners, less like a proper sit-down restaurant.

Kresge (predecessor of K-Mart) had a neat diner where they served ice cream–they had a deal where if you were a kid they would give you a balloon to pop and there would be a coupon inside that showed what you would pay for your sundae. Mom occasionally treated us to that.

71

Woolworth department stores also had lunch counters. Their store in Greensboro, North Carolina was the site of sit-in protests in 1960 against whites-only policies.

72

Woolco, Canada’s Woolworths (long ago bought out by the Waltons), had two redeeming qualities. $1.44 day, and the lemon jello cheesecake sold in their little café.

73

Woolco stores were in the US as well. I remember one in a Connecticut suburb decades ago.

74

not to mention, Sears also had car repair and serviced their appliances…ah good old days

75

as someone who grew up in STL, Famous Barr (May Co) had french onion soup to die for (and acclaimed) with 3 restaurants in bldg

76

And the fanciest of the three restaurants (was it The Garden Room at Famous Barr) also had noon fashion shows.

That’s another tradition that’s gone by the wayside. Now we have entire websites devoted to badly dressed WalMart shoppers.

77

Related to those fashion shows is something I’ve seen portrayed in movies or TV shows; a fashion show for just one customer. Say a woman wants to purchase an evening gown; the store will parade several employees past her wearing a selection. It seems unbelievable that a store would devote multiple employees to that.

78

Actually, I just saw this in Nordstrom’s NYC! A lady was doing a private purse shopping experience. She was out of sight behind a little wall/hallway area, but we could hear her, the “consultant” she was working with, and see the two assistants who were coming out to grab purses to show her. So three people for one person.

79

I suppose it’s easier for purses rather than dresses that require a clerk to get in and out of (and presumably several clerks all the same size). Plus some of those purses cost thousands of dollars.

80

No, the stores used actual models, not sales clerks.