Adepartment store is aretail establishment offering a wide range ofconsumer 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 inLondon (withWhiteleys), inParis (Le Bon Marché) and inNew York City (Stewart's).[1]
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 indiscount department stores, while high-end traditional department stores include sales counters within each department. Some stores are one of many within a largerretail chain, while others are an independent retailer.
Since the 1980s, they have come under heavy pressure from discounters, and have come under even heavier pressure frome-commerce sites since the 2000s.
Department stores can be classified in several ways:
Some sources may refer to the following types of stores as department stores, even though they are not generally considered as such:
One of the first department stores may have been Bennett's inDerby, first established as anironmonger (hardware shop) in 1734.[7] It still stands to this day, trading in the same building. However, the first reliably dated department store to be established, wasHarding, Howell & Co., which opened in 1796 onPall Mall, London.[8] The oldest department store chain may beDebenhams, which was established in 1778 and closed in 2021. It is the longest trading defunct British retailer. An observer writing inAckermann'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.[9]
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 ofconsumer goods in different departments. Jonathan Glancey for theBBC 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 theIndustrial 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.[10]
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This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820 when thebusiness partnership was dissolved. All the majorHigh Streets in British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century. Increasingly, women became the main customers.[11]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 toHouse of Fraser. The Manchester institution dates back to 1836 but had been trading as Watts Bazaar since 1796.[12] 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. Opened in 1830,Austins in Derry remained in operation as the world's oldest independent department store until its closure in 2016.[13][14]Lewis's of Liverpool operated from 1856 to 2010. The world's firstChristmas grotto opened in Lewis's in 1879, entitled 'Christmas Fairyland'.[15]Liberty & Co. in London'sWest End gained popularity in the 1870s for selling Oriental goods.[16] In 1889,Oscar Wilde wrote "Liberty's is the chosen resort of the artistic shopper".[17]
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The Paris department stores have roots in themagasin de nouveautés, ornovelty store; the first, the Tapis Rouge, was created in 1784.[18] They flourished in the early 19th century.Balzac described their functioning in his novelCésar 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.[19]
A novelty shop calledAu 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.[20]
Au Bon Marché soon had half a dozen or more competitors includingPrintemps, founded in 1865;La Samaritaine (1869), Bazar de Hotel de Ville (BHV); andGaleries Lafayette (1895).[19][21] The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores.[22] The great writerÉmile Zola (1840–1902) set his novelAu 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.[23]
Australia is notable for having the longest continuously operating department store,David Jones.[24][25] 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 ofGeorge andBarrack Streets inSydney, 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.[24] Other department stores in Australia includeGrace Bros founded in 1885, now merged withMyer which was founded in 1900.[26]
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.[27]
In New York City in 1846,Alexander Turney Stewart established the "Marble Palace" onBroadway, 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 aRenaissancepalazzo, the building'scast iron construction permitted largeplate 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.[28] In 1858,Rowland Hussey Macy foundedMacy's as a dry goods store.
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.[29] 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 useescalators.[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.[30]
In 1877,John Wanamaker opened what some claim was the United States' first "modern" department store inPhiladelphia: 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.[31]
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Another store to revolutionize the concept of the department store wasSelfridges in London, established in 1909 by American-bornHarry Gordon Selfridge onOxford 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 toassist customers, but not too aggressively, and tosell the merchandise.[32] Selfridge attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits; in 1909,Louis Blériot'smonoplane was exhibited at Selfridges (Blériot was the first to fly over theEnglish Channel), and the first public demonstration of television byJohn Logie Baird took place in the department store in 1925.
InJapan, the first "modern-style" department store wasMitsukoshi, founded in 1904, which has its root as akimono 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 inGinza allowed street shoes to be worn indoors, something innovative at the time.[33] 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 fromrailway companies. There have been manyprivate railway operators in the nation and, from the 1920s, they started to build department stores directly linked to their lines'termini.Seibu andHankyu are typical examples of this type.
In the middle of the 1920s, American management theories such as thescientific management ofF.W. Taylor started spreading in Europe. TheInternational 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 theInternational Association of Department Stores in Paris in 1928 to have a discussion space dedicated to this retail format.
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| Year | Store | City/ Metro area | "First" | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1923 | I. MagninHollywood | Los Angeles | First suburban department store (not including hotel/resort stores) | [34] |
| 1930 | Suburban Square | Philadelphia | First department store branch to anchor a suburban shopping center | [35] |
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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, insuburban Los Angeles,The Broadway-Hollywood,Bullocks Wilshire, TheMay Company-Wilshire,Saks-Beverly Hills, as well as twoStrawbridge and Clothier stores:Suburban Square (1930) andJenkintown (1931) outside Philadelphia. Suburban Square was the first shopping center anchored by a department store.[35] 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)[36] store inLakewood Center near Los Angeles, at the time, the largest suburban department store in the world.[37] However, only three years later it would build an even bigger, 452,000-square-foot (42,000 m2) store in theSan Fernando Valley atLaurel Plaza.
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Starting in 2010 many analysts referred to aretail apocalypse in the United States and some other markets, referring to the closing ofbrick-and-mortarretail stores, especially those of large chains.[38][39] 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 duringholiday peak periods, delayed effects of theGreat Recession of 2008-9,[39] shifts in spending toexperiences rather than material goods, relaxeddress codes in workplaces, and the shift toe-commerce[40] in whichAmazon.com andWalmart 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 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.[citation needed]
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.[41]
With the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, most U.S. retailers offered acurbside pickup service as an option on their websites, and a dedicated area at one of the store entrances accessible by car.
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.[citation needed]
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 and Intime "Department Stores" in China) where most space is leased out to other retailers, big-box category 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[42] | 3,163,567 | Jun 26, 2009 | open |
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| Macy's | Herald Square (seearticle) | New York | U.S. | 232,258 | 2,500,000[43] | 1902 | open |
| |||||||
| Anthony Hordern & Sons | Sydney | Australia | 210,437 | 2,265,120 | 1823 | 1973 | |
| Gimbels | Center City | Philadelphia | U.S. | 202,343 | 2,178,000[44] | 1894 | 1993 |
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| Hudson's | Downtown Detroit | Detroit | U.S. | 197,355 (1983) | 2,124,316 (1983)[45] | 1891[45] | Jan 17, 1983[45] |
| |||||||
| Marshall Fields, nowMacy's | State Street store (seearticle) | Chicago | U.S. | 185,806 (1912) | 2,000,000 (1912)[46] | 1902 | open |
| |||||||
| Wanamaker's, nowMacy's | 1300 Market St.,Center City | Philadelphia | U.S. | 176,516 (1995) | 1,900,000 (1995)[47] | 1876 | March 23, 2025[48] |
| Shinsegae | Uijeongbu (의정부점) | Uijeongbu | S. Korea | 145,000[49] | 1,560,000 | open | |
| |||||||
| Rich's | Downtown | Atlanta | U.S. | 115,886 | 1,247,382 | 1924 | 1994 |
| Kaufmann's | 4005th Ave.,Downtown | Pittsburgh | U.S. | 111,484[51] | 1,200,000 | 1887[52] | Sep 20, 2015[53] |
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| Wertheim | Leipziger Straße | Berlin | Germany | 106,000[54] | 1,140,975 | Dec 1897[54] | Nov 1943[55] |
| May Co. | Public Square− | Cleveland | U.S. | 104,144 | 1,121,000[56] | 1915 | 1993 |
| Hankyu | Umeda (seearticle in Japanese) | Osaka | Japan | 102,758[57] | 1,106,078 | Apr 15, 1929[58] | open |
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| Le Bon Marché | 7th arrondissement | Paris | France | 102,360 | 1,101,794 | Apr 2, 1872[59] | open |
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| Hamburger's/ May Company | Broadway,Downtown (seearticle) | Los Angeles | U.S. | 102,193 | 1,100,000[60] | 1906 | 1986 |
| Harrods | Knightsbridge | London | U.K. | 102,193 | 1,100,000[61] | 1849 | open |
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| Kintetsu | Abeno Harukas (seearticle in Japanese) | Osaka | Japan | 100,000[62][63] | 1,076,391 | Mar 2014[62] | open |
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| Intime | Ningbo General | Ningbo | China | 96,000 | 1,003,335[64] | open | |
| Gimbels | Herald Square | New York | U.S. | 92,903 | 1,000,000[65] | Sep 29, 1910 | Sep 27, 1986[66] |
| 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[67] | 1872/1898 | Feb 21, 2007[68][69] |
| Mandel Bros./ Wieboldt's | State Street | Chicago | U.S. | 81,848 | 881,000[70] | 1875 | Jul 18, 1987[71] |
| Takashimaya | Minami (Namba-Shinsaibashi) | Osaka | Japan | 78,000[63] | 839,585 | open | |
| Daimaru | Shinsaibashi (seearticle in Japanese) | Osaka | Japan | 77,000 | 828,821 | 1922 | open |
| Eaton's/ Sears Canada | Eaton Centre | Toronto | Canada | 76,809 | 816,000[72] | Feb 10, 1977[73][74] | Feb 9, 2014[73] |
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| Bullock's | Broadway, Downtown | Los Angeles | U.S. | 75,809 | 806,000[75] | 1907 | 1983 |
| The Bon Marché | Downtown seearticle | Seattle | U.S. | 74,322 | 800,000[76] | 1929 | 2020 |
| Karstadt nowGaleria | Hermannplatz(seearticle in German) | Berlin | Germany | 72,000 | 775,002 | 1929 | open |
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| The Emporium | Market Street | San Francisco | U.S. | 72,000 | 775,000[80] | 1908 | 1996 |
| El Corte Inglés | Torre Titania,Paseo de la Castellana,Castellana | Madrid | Spain | 70,000[81] | 753,474 | 2011[82] | open |
| Galeries Lafayette | Boulevard Haussmann | Paris | France | 70,000[83] | 753,474 | 1912[83] | open |
| Lazarus | 141 S. High St.(seearticle) | Columbus, Ohio | U.S. | 65,000 | 700,000[84] | 1909[84] | 2004[84] |
| Isetan | Shinjuku (seearticle in Japanese) | Tokyo | Japan | 64,296[85] | 692,080 | Sep 28, 1933[85] | open |
| Daimaru | Umeda (seearticle in Japanese) | Osaka | Japan | 64,000[63] | 688,890 | open | |
| El Palacio de Hierro/ Casa Palacio | Centro Santa Fe | Santa Fe, Mexico City | Mexico | 61,987[86] | 667,223 | 1993[87] | open |
| Saks Fifth Avenue | Midtown (seearticle) | New York | U.S. | 60,387 | 650,000[88] | 1924 | open |
| KaDeWe | Tauentzienstraße | Berlin | Germany | 60,000[89] | 645,835 | Mar 27, 1907 | open |
| J. W. Robinson's | 7th St. Downtown | Los Angeles | U.S. | 57,940 | 623,700[90] | Sep 7, 1915[91] | Feb 1993 |
| Shinsegae | Myeongdong Main Store (본점 본관, 신관) | Seoul | S. Korea | 56,528[92] | 608,460 | open | |
| Halle's | Halle Building, 1228Euclid Ave.,Downtown | Cleveland, Ohio | U.S. | 56,300 | 606,000[93] | 1910[94] | 1982[94] |
| Selfridges | Oxford Street | London | U.K. | 55,742 | 600,000[95] | Mar 15, 1909[96] | open |
| El Palacio de Hierro | Polanco | Mexico City | Mexico | 55,200[97] | 594,168 | 2016 | open |
| |||||||
| The Broadway | Broadway, Downtown | Los Angeles | U.S. | 53,600[98] | 577,000 | Feb 24, 1896[99] | Nov 16, 1973[100] |
| Hanshin | Umeda (seearticle in Japanese) | Osaka | Japan | 54,000[63] | 581,251 | open | |
| Isetan | JR WestŌsaka Station (seearticle in Japanese) | Osaka | Japan | 50,000 | 538,196 | May 4, 2011 | Jul 28, 2014[101] |
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*store has no branches**opened at this location (may have expanded significantly in the years after initial opening)
Dreher's design called for a cluster of shops built around a major department store, with a supermarket, movie theater and office buildings with ample parking space.
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