27 ms·

Death of the Department Store

113 points by samclemens 2y ago

baggachipz 2y ago
https://archive.is/slouE https://archive.is/slouE
delichon 2y ago
Seems like they just got so much bigger that we don't even recognize them as a department store. Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, et al. are just variations on the theme. Extrapolate and discover that we'll eventually live and shop in a department store that encapsulates the planet like Trantor.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I think the distinction is between historically urban department stores and big box suburban stores although there was a period when you had (now dying) department stores like Macy's in the suburbs. I think it's an open question what happens to downtowns with the diminution of brick & mortar retail and people coming into offices (even if the latter has reversed in favor of office work more than some had predicted). A lot of cities have ebbed and flowed over time and there's no guarantee of a specific universal future pattern whatever some individuals may wish for.
  - buescher 2y ago
    Suburban malls were really disruptive to the dry goods industry - in the sixties. Well-run stores adapted fast to needing have anchor stores at malls. I wonder how things would have played out differently if the generation that computerized their stores before the personal computer era and finessed the transition to malls had still been calling the shots at these companies during the dotcom boom.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There was a period where you had a lot of white flight from urban centers in the US and a lot retail moved out to the suburbs as a result. Retail pretty much follows the consumers. I'm not sure retail could have (or had the incentive to) keep the consumers in the cities. As anecdata, when I graduated from grad school in the mid-eighties, other than Manhattan financial people, pretty much no one I knew went to live in a major city. In Massachusetts, none of the computer industry jobs were in Boston any lony longer.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > I wonder how things would have played out differently if the generation that computerized their stores before the personal computer era and finessed the transition to malls had still been calling the shots at these companies during the dotcom boom. A lot of it was bad luck. Sears shut down their catalog operation in 1993, because it was losing money, but if they'd held on for a few more years they'd have been in a prime position to be Amazon.
      - buescher 2y ago
        Sears managed to miss both the opportunity to be Amazon and the opportunity to be Home Depot. At some point you have to wonder how much luck was really involved.
        jewayne 2y ago
        The US financial system discourages mature companies from making the kinds of investments necessary to stay relevant indefinitely. Maybe in a Jack-Welch-free world Sears would have become Amazon, but in our world a mature company has to maximize this quarter's profits, over and above all concerns about the future.
        buescher 2y ago
        Well, Amazon was a venture-funded startup, so sure, but Home Depot and Lowes? Other companies managed under similar constraints. Sears, on the other hand, introduced and successfully marketed the Discover card during that era, which is still plugging along. Probably to be more like GE, which used to have a big financial services division. There's nuance here.
        ghaff 2y ago
        In the 80s, Sears was this sort of meandering store with no real identity that had some strong points (Craftsman) but had mostly mediocre clothing--they brought in Lands End but mis-managed. Were OK in appliances but big box vendors really out-competed them. And Walmart really outcompeted on discount. I did shop at Sears at one point especially after I bought a house but they became increasingly uninteresting relative to alternatives.
- throwup238 2y ago
  I think the Costco Idiocracy scene is probably going to be the most prescient portrayal of the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdNmOOq6T8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdNmOOq6T8Y Trantor is the seat of a galactic empire with thousands if not millions of planets supplying its population. Skynet by Haliburton-Costco-TraderJoes will eat the world long before we're interplanetary.
  - pmarreck 2y ago
    Idiocracy is a rare example of something that is aging like cheese instead of milk.
    - deepfriedchokes 2y ago
      That’s clever, but I think it’s just us that’s aging. When you’re young and dumb and full of… optimism, you don’t really notice how fucked up everything and everyone is. It just hasn’t sunken in yet.
      - pmarreck 2y ago
        You sound like you could use a vacation, or just a walk in the forest, or maybe some free time, or being blunt, oral attention from another.
    - dole 2y ago
      We can only hope Terry Crews runs for president.
- buescher 2y ago
  Big box stores are really qualitatively different from what a department store was - although the department store's brilliant marketing innovation of letting customers handle the merchandise as if it was already theirs led to big box discount stores and supermarkets. Merchandising and decor have been going downhill in even the best mall anchor stores for decades, so maybe the gap isn't as big now, but it was a really different shopping experience within living memory.
  - mc32 2y ago
    This is going to sound sexist, or youthist... but... dep't stores used to hire young people for many of the display cases, either gals or guys --of course they had the "patronly" guy for serious things, like suits and so on, but for many things they had something not quite over the top like the buxom and ripped "kids" A&F had, but the guys and gals were not frumpy... these days it's different.
    - buescher 2y ago
      For the displays? Rarely. But as salespeople, well, that too. There's probably a whole lot to unpack in the why of that, but there just aren't as many young people, more of them are fat, and on the whole people don't dress as carefully. As an aside, I've lived away from urban areas for a while now, so maybe I am not the best judge, but I would be dumbstruck today by a first-rate window display in a downtown retail store.
      - jerlam 2y ago
        Having a job, any job, as a teenager is now looked upon as something that makes you look poor, and in many states the minimum wage is barely worth the effort. Wealthy parents would rather their children spend their time doing more studying or extracurriculars, since both of those have a better return when applying for colleges than any retail job.
        t-3 2y ago
        It's also just a hassle that neither employers nor the prospective employees want to deal with. Tons of rules and regulations for the boss, very limited working hours, and the risk of an immature kid suddenly quitting without notice or throwing a tantrum. The kids have to get a work permit from their school, have to find someone willing to hire them (for probably less than the adult minimum wage), and then do the type of menial and unrewarding drudgery that drives working adults to despair. The days boomers talk about - when a kid could start work at 14 and make money worth spending and get useful experience - are long gone.
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Not exactly - part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department. And the sales pitch is one of high value, you might even say beauty or care. Costco/Walmart are, from a European perspective, more like a "cash and carry" wholesaler masquerading as retail. There is very little effort made to present the goods, it's all about high volume and the lowest possible price. They're equivalent to our supermarkets/hypermarkets, but even bigger and broader in scope. This might sound like I'm stanning for department stores but not really. They're way more expensive than Amazon or discount retail, priced more like a specialist, and the quality and expertise doesn't always match the presentation. You can easily end up paying specialist prices for Amazon quality if you're not careful. Anyway, I think their time is up, perhaps with a few high-end exceptions surviving as a luxury tourist experience. In central London, we've a department store just for toys - like an old-fashioned and upmarket Toys'R'Us - and today's generation are basically un-wowed. Like, sure it has a lot of stock, but the big etail operators have a lot more again. And you don't have to travel 40 minutes to look at it.
  - jasode 2y ago
    >part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department. And the sales pitch is one of high value, you might even say beauty or care. Yes, exactly. To add to that, the salespeople in each department got a percentage sales commission. E.g. at Sears department store, the salesperson in jewelry dept was on a commission structure. The salesman working the Sears appliance center got a commission when the customer bought a washer & dryer or refrigerator; same situation in the Sears furniture department when a customer bought a sofa. In contrast, the big-box discount stores like Walmart and HomeDepot have hourly paid employees without sales commissions.
    - JoshTriplett 2y ago
      That is an excellent reason not to go to such places. For some stores, "we don't work on commission" is a selling point to the customer.
      - 2y ago
- tivert 2y ago
  > Seems like they just got so much bigger that we don't even recognize them as a department store. Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, et. al. are just variations on the theme. I don't think so. Home Depot is clearly a big hardware store / lumber yard. Costco may carry many kinds of merchandise, shelved roughly according to type, I don't think it really qualifies as it has unspecialized staff (and very few of them), little selection within each type of item, and probably its only true "department" is the tire department. The only thing you list that could arguably be a department store is Walmart, and I think the reason it's not recognized as one isn't because of its size, but because it's been drained of all glamor. And none of them (at least in their non "super" sizes) are subjectively much bigger than the old mall department stores.
  - buescher 2y ago
    Walmart and Target are discount department stores, which is a different niche. K-mart is closing their last store, incidentally. There used to be more of them, too, and more regional ones.
    - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
      Kmart stores are still doing very well in Australia and New Zealand, with 325 locations serving a population less than 1/10th the size of the US. However, Australian/New Zealand Kmart stores have had no connection to American Kmart stores since the 90s, when Kmart Corporation sold them off to an Australian company that has managed them much more effectively.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Tbh Home Depot is to lumber what gas stations are to sandwiches. Actually this is unfair to gas station sandwiches, but you get the idea.
    - silisili 2y ago
      Mine is an enigma. The lumber is indoors, but is always soaking wet. It's infuriating. One time while digging through a pile of 2x4s, an employee asked if I needed anything. I sarcastically asked what time they watered the lumber each day, so I could try to come get some before then. He just deadpan said "uh...I'm not sure."
- adamc 2y ago
  The experience of something like Walmart is so much degraded from, say, the Marshall Field's I grew up with in Chicago, that... no. They are nothing like classic department stores. They are more like a modern K-mart.
  - jhbadger 2y ago
    Even Macy's (which is what took over Marshall Field's) is a far, far inferior experience to classy classic stores like Marshall Field's.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Seems like they just got so much bigger that we don't even recognize them as a department store. Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, et al. are just variations on the theme. That's not an issue of size; Walmart, Costco, and Home Depot are smaller than department stores are. And department stores have gotten smaller over time; they used to be much bigger than they are now, which you can see by visiting a flagship store.
- melagonster 2y ago
  Thank you, You just randomly use Trantor as an example, Give me a warm feeling :)
- harimau777 2y ago
  Stores like Walmart don't provide the same level of service that department stores did. The staff at department stores were generally expected to more or less present as professionals and act as salespeople. The staff at Walmart more or less present as bored and spend most of their time stocking shelves. The staff at department stores were expected to have some level of expertise in their department. The staff at Walmart often seem to only have a vague idea of what products they sell.
ScienceKnife 2y ago
I buy about 99% of what I consume online, so yeah, I would guess that old, large, and wasteful ventures will eventually die out.
atourgates 2y ago
While "a major department store in every town" is probablty a thing of the past, my impression is that at least in major European capitals, the "national" department stores are still going strong. I make it a point to try and visit them when I can. A couple hours in Selfridges in London, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Stockmann in Helsinki, Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm or Magasin du Nord in Copenhagen will tell you something about the country you're visiting, and keep you well entertained. I never buy anything outside of maybe a snack from their over-the-top food halls (most recently Moomin-shaped-gummies in Helsinki), or a sometimes surprisingly affordable lunch at one of their lunch counters (it's hard to beat the view you get along with your lunch or apéro at the top Galeries Lafayette on their terrace). But in any case, none of these flagships have ever seemed empty or disused. On the contrary, I'm always surprised that while I might be astounded by the prices on display, there are always hundreds of local shoppers who seem to be quite happy to pay them.
- tpm 2y ago
  I also enjoy El Corte Ingles in Spain. Sadly the German department stores seem to be dying and in the eastern countries the stores died in the 90's after the fall of communism.
- heikkilevanto 2y ago
  Couple of years ago I went to Helsinki for my birthday, and got a gift card for Stockmann department store. I was so disappointed. I found the "department" for cooking things. But I did not find a section for frying pans or scissors. I found a section for Fiskars brand, and others. Fiskars had frying pans, scissors, and everything they make, up to and almost including their wood splitting axes. Other brands had their frying pans, pots, cutting boards, aprons, salt shakers, and whatever. I felt that I was supposed to decide first on what brand I wanted, and then what kind of thing. Maybe some people shop that way, but for me it certainly didn't work. Same thing with Magasin du Nord in Copenhagen. All about brands. A little bit of friendly service, but nothing special. But yes, they are busy with tourists and even some locals shopping. Glad we still have a few shops that specialize in the kind of things they sell, and can provide good service. That is the kind of shops I want to support, even at a bit higher prices.
mullingitover 2y ago
This isn't terribly surprising: it's an inferior business model to online sales. They put too many obstacles between the customer and the checkout counter. The customer had to travel, potentially long distances. Then they had to wander the aisles looking for the product, compare it without any unbiased third party reviews. Then they had to travel back home. This all added friction, not to mention the overall price of the products. All the opulence of those stores came from high operating costs, which were ultimately borne by the customer. The sales staff expertise came with commission-based sales, which meant you could never really trust the salesperson because they had a vested interest in making a sale whether the product was good or not. Mourning the loss of department stores is like bemoaning the loss of fancy horse carriages.
- com2kid 2y ago
  Compare that to todays model where I get to spend hours scrolling through Amazon listings of mostly the same product sold by different vendors, except occasionally there are small (but significant) differences. I don't get to see or touch the product until it arrives. For the product categories that still have recognizable brands (fewer and fewer every day it seems like) I am 100% reliant upon online reviewers, many of whom are biased and paid by the brands they are supposed to be reviewing. Amazon makes a lot of money by showing ads on their own site, so they are incentivized to keep me scrolling through page after page of listings crammed with ads, for as long as I can tolerate before I actually do make a purchase.
  - musicale 2y ago
    I'm a fan of the seemingly randomly chosen brand names on Amazon.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    I buy a lot online and almost never on amazon, preferring shops focusing on a specific domain. I am pretty sure amazon/aliexpress model will be dying too at some point, because of the search nightmare, inexistent warranty and unreliable reviews.
  - 2y ago
iso8859-1 2y ago
Department stores are doing great in Mexico. For example, the high rise Mitikah in CDMX was recently completed, and it has a mall complete with metro access, cinema and a giant department store chain called Liverpool. Pictures from the opening[0]. Another new mall, Portal Norte is under construction in Naucalpan, a suburb.[1] Not sure whether it will feature a Liverpool but I would almost be surprised if it wouldn't. I went to Puebla last month and it has a whole neighborhood of malls called Angelopolis, including bike paths to connect them.[2] The last mall opened in 2018.[3] I love malls because they are car free, pretty plants and have armed guards. It feels safer than being in the street. [0]: https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolmexico/posts/liverpool-m%C3%ADtikah-abre-sus-puertas-conoce-nuestra-%C3%BAltima-tienda-al-sur-de-la-ciu/10160354259016217/ https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolmexico/posts/liverpool-m%C... [1]: https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/edomex/portal-norte-es-un-monstruo-que-nos-preocupa-vecino-de-ciudad-satelite-edomex/ https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/edomex/portal-norte-es-un-mon... [2]: https://www.corazondepuebla.com.mx/descubre/parque-lineal/ https://www.corazondepuebla.com.mx/descubre/parque-lineal/ [3]: https://www.e-consulta.com/nota/2017-12-14/ciudad/abre-solesta-centro-comercial-de-lujo-frente-angelopolis https://www.e-consulta.com/nota/2017-12-14/ciudad/abre-soles...
- prmoustache 2y ago
  Well, Mexico is doing everything US does but with a 30 to 50 years delay so that is not really suprising.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    Mexico is doing everything the US did of what? This isn't an explanation, but just a random idea.
openrisk 2y ago
The department store embodies middle-class consumerism of the 20th century. While consumerism is going stronger than ever, the same cannot be said about the middle class. The shopping experience of the department store (pleasant environment, individual attention by knowledgeable salespeople etc.) is now only to be found in upmarket boutique shops, whereas hoi polloi are being served by goods distribution systems that are essentially automated.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  The department store embodies old lady consumerism. It's where you go to find mediocre but overpriced products. It's where your mom bought clothes for you that you didn't really like. It's where your mom still shops. The pricing structure is based on making moms feel like they got a good deal on a "sale", but actually everything is just overpriced and you can't get things with the appropriate price unless you play their dumb game. There are stories about department stores stopping this and losing lots of sales because their customers were addicted to it. They simply failed to change to attract new generations, their buyers couldn't buy for the next generation, so they kept targeting their aging customer base until they were gone and poof, no more department stores. You probably could do a new generation of department store targeting younger folks, but it would have to be much different. Probably won't happen. My last department store trip was to buy socks, they didn't have what I wanted, then I paid an outrageous price for average athletic socks because I didn't have the right coupon, store card, flier, whatever. I wanted socks more than I wanted to go through the trouble of buying nicer or cheaper ones on the Internet as I was already there. Kohls has a deal where they will give you a substantial coupon if you return something from Amazon to the store. Fuck me though, I'm not going to do the obvious scam. I'd feel less ripped off spending $50 per sock at Hermes.
  - spiffotron 2y ago
    I think UK and US department stores are actually very very different. UK department stores generally only stock super high end designer gear, and sales / coupons are very very rare.
hinkley 2y ago
The whole time I grew up Department Stores were not functioning like old school department stores. With the exception of the cosmetics area in Macy’s and Penny’s that’s still pretty true. Meanwhile Best Buy is looking more like an old school department store, with sections for one vendor.
pmarreck 2y ago
There is a department store in Berlin called KaDeWe that is definitely worth a visit if it is doomed. It is probably the coolest department store I've ever seen.
- jhbadger 2y ago
  Absolutely. It is probably the best existing example of the classic department store (not discount store like WalMart or the current version of Macy's) that is basically already gone in the US.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  kadewe was amazing for finding brands that only dinky boutiques would carry in north america, only store outside of japan i've seen carry undercover
dugmartin 2y ago
We lost our local family owned department store a few years when the CEO retired. Walking around in there was like stepping back in time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%27s_(department_store) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%27s_(department_store)
- twic 2y ago
  There's an independent (ish) department store near me, Selby's, that's just about still going, somehow: https://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/pages/james-selby https://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/pages/james-selby And another that is no longer so near me, Boswells, that very sadly isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boswells_of_Oxford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boswells_of_Oxford - it was a frequent destination for homewares as a student, and then many years later, for last-minute christmas shopping as an uncle.
langsoul-com 2y ago
Go to Asia, the department store is not dead in the slightest. Though, definitely changed a lot.
- conductr 2y ago
  That would make sense as it’s essentially a middle class novelty and their middle class is still rather novel.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    Novel where? I don't think this is a good explanation. Japan has had department stores for the better part of the last century.
    - conductr 2y ago
      Sure, Japan is probably one of the largest exceptions in all of Asia. I wasn't making a absolute statement, more relative. So in general directional terms, I guess I was thinking more so of China/India (that are individually over 10x Japan's population) and have a middle class consumer for only a couple decades now. Many other countries are closer to mirroring China than Japan and some don't even apply here because they don't have a significant middle class yet. I thought it would be obvious that China/India is most of Asia.
- deleted 2y ago
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InDubioProRubio 2y ago
The switch to massive, centralized logistics, is itself a indicator of the impending death of a society. It removes the little local depots that are department stores, thus allowing supply-chain "kicks" to come in ever harder. If you remove dampening elements, the resulting system is more agile but also more fragile and potentially self-destructive.
- halfmatthalfcat 2y ago
  Impending death based on what? There’s plenty of boutiques that cater to things above “the necessities”, like groceries or clothes. Why do we need mom and pop grocery? It’s not efficient. Take a look around at the amount of thrift or boutique clothings shops, they’re small but large in number and it’s not even including purely online boutique. People who cry about the death of the corner store have insane tunnel vision.
  - jetrink 2y ago
    I loved living around the corner from a small grocery store. It made it possible to pick up ingredients and fresh vegetables for dinner on the walk home from the train or when taking the dog for a walk with my wife. It was a bit more expensive, but that was offset by the fact that buying only what you need for the next couple of days leads to less spoilage and waste. Overall, our food budget has remained about the same since we had to move away. Where I live now, it takes 15-20 minutes to drive to the grocery store, so it's only practical to shop once per week. Shopping is a big chore and a fight with traffic, not a nice walk. It means I need to dedicate more of my apartment to food storage and more of my time to meal planning. It's certainly not an efficiency gain for me personally. On the plus side, the large store does have 73 different flavors of potato chips.
    - IanCal 2y ago
      How centralised the logistics are doesn't seem to me to be all that related to the size and number of the shops. For example, here there's Tesco. But there's huge tescos, tiny ones in towns, tiny ones outside of towns, subsidiary companies like onestop that exclusively are smaller shops (we tend to call them "corner shops" here). If anything, a larger central logistics "engine" behind it should make it much easier to pop up a new shop somewhere as most of the issues are solved and there's experience in doing it. It does however make things more boring.
janalsncm 2y ago
I’ve traveled to many places where stores seem to be doing just fine. They have too many employees, even, by American standards. I think it comes down to the cost of real estate. Both for the store, but also for employees’ housing. Higher rents mean people need to be paid more which means fewer employees and a worse experience. I don’t know who came up with the “30% of your salary” rule for housing, but it was probably the same person who came up with the “3 months salary for a ring” rule. It seems made up. 30% is way too high. I’d love to see a survey of these factors globally. I think we put up with things in America because we don’t know any better.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > 30% is way too high Underestimate in many circumstances. Poor people living in UK cities are paying up to 50% of their income in housing. https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IFS-Report-Housing-costs-and-income-inequality-in-the-UK.pdf https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IFS... (the Georgists have a point; over time, rentiers gradually capture more and more of an economy) Also department stores are a victim of a gradient across the globe. You want a westerner, standing in a western city, to spend time with you selling you a product? Of course all those things are staggeringly expensive. See also healthcare.
- pistoleer 2y ago
  Everything in every society is just "made up".
  - grecy 2y ago
    Sure, and some of those things were made up thousands of years ago and have proven to work well since. Others were made up in the last 30 years by global corporations trying to extract maximum profit as fast as possible, future be damned.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  > I don’t know who came up with the “30% of your salary” Well of course, it was "the experts". You know... "THE experts". I wish I had $20 for everytime the media parrots something without every questioning it. And the masses nod mindlessly and think, "Yes, of course." In this case... Landlords, banks and real estate agents - all with an interest in higher === better - are the likely candidates for "the experts".
Double_a_92 2y ago
For me personally they are just not a very attractive place. At best you get the grocery section and the shoe store. Everything else is usually too expensive, doesn't offer a good variety and quality of products, or is highly targeted at teenage girls for some reason. As a guy I honestly don't know where to go shopping for clothes... I just have to hope for occasional random finds.
- deleted 2y ago
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- randomdata 2y ago
  Groceries seem quite unusual for a department store, with their focus on quality and luxury (or at least the illusion of), and food being commoditized. Are you, perhaps, thinking of discount department stores? Groceries are quite commonly found there, but they are something quite different.`
TheAdamist 2y ago
I've come to the conclusion that men will eventually just be naked in the future. Every time i go to shop for clothes in the USA the men's section has shrunk and the women's has gotten larger. Or we will all eventually just dress like steve jobs, just pairs of the one legal compliance shirt and pants combo available for sale.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Jeans that are acceptable and T-shirts made of whatever "ring-spun Egyptian cotton" that is cheap enough to feel like polyester and probably is
- consteval 2y ago
  The men's clothes are still larger than they were in the 80s. Really men's clothing right now is just a game of doing whatever gay men do but, like, 5 years later. So that means in a year or two men's clothes will be back to thick pant legs, flares, and maybe even pleats. Don't worry, the cropped shirts and booty shorts was just a phase.
  - nerdjon 2y ago
    I don't think the booty shorts phase with gay men has ended yet, still very much see it in places like ptown. (however I do acknowledge that ptown is a bit of a bubble...) Personally I am waiting for the long earings to catch on outside of gay men.
- randomdata 2y ago
  I'm told there is a growing trend of men wearing "women's" clothing. Perhaps the eventual outcome is that we will all wear the same thing (whatever women consider to be fashionable)?
- deleted 2y ago
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- silver_silver 2y ago
  I'm a 6'4" man and bought two pairs of trousers from the women's section recently. They fit perfectly but granted are what would have been marketed as "plus size" in the past. Would encourage everyone who doesn't mind a less utilitarian look to try it. There's a much, much wider variety of pieces and it's cheaper too - especially for more formal styles.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
mythrwy 2y ago
I remember the early/mid 70's when I was a little kid and department stores with multiple floors, elevators and escalators and Santa. They were nice. But buying something at the time was en event (at least for my family) too. A small microwave was hundreds of dollars (in 1970s dollars). A TV was a giant purchase. It seemed to start changing in the 80s when the "Mallrats" style malls came to prominence followed by the big box stores in late 80's/90's.

113 points by samclemens 2y ago

https://archive.is/slouE https://archive.is/slouE

Seems like they just got so much bigger that we don't even recognize them as a department store. Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, et al. are just variations on the theme. Extrapolate and discover that we'll eventually live and shop in a department store that encapsulates the planet like Trantor.

ghaff 2y ago
I think the distinction is between historically urban department stores and big box suburban stores although there was a period when you had (now dying) department stores like Macy's in the suburbs. I think it's an open question what happens to downtowns with the diminution of brick & mortar retail and people coming into offices (even if the latter has reversed in favor of office work more than some had predicted). A lot of cities have ebbed and flowed over time and there's no guarantee of a specific universal future pattern whatever some individuals may wish for.
- buescher 2y ago
  Suburban malls were really disruptive to the dry goods industry - in the sixties. Well-run stores adapted fast to needing have anchor stores at malls. I wonder how things would have played out differently if the generation that computerized their stores before the personal computer era and finessed the transition to malls had still been calling the shots at these companies during the dotcom boom.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    There was a period where you had a lot of white flight from urban centers in the US and a lot retail moved out to the suburbs as a result. Retail pretty much follows the consumers. I'm not sure retail could have (or had the incentive to) keep the consumers in the cities. As anecdata, when I graduated from grad school in the mid-eighties, other than Manhattan financial people, pretty much no one I knew went to live in a major city. In Massachusetts, none of the computer industry jobs were in Boston any lony longer.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > I wonder how things would have played out differently if the generation that computerized their stores before the personal computer era and finessed the transition to malls had still been calling the shots at these companies during the dotcom boom. A lot of it was bad luck. Sears shut down their catalog operation in 1993, because it was losing money, but if they'd held on for a few more years they'd have been in a prime position to be Amazon.
    - buescher 2y ago
      Sears managed to miss both the opportunity to be Amazon and the opportunity to be Home Depot. At some point you have to wonder how much luck was really involved.
      - jewayne 2y ago
        The US financial system discourages mature companies from making the kinds of investments necessary to stay relevant indefinitely. Maybe in a Jack-Welch-free world Sears would have become Amazon, but in our world a mature company has to maximize this quarter's profits, over and above all concerns about the future.
        buescher 2y ago
        Well, Amazon was a venture-funded startup, so sure, but Home Depot and Lowes? Other companies managed under similar constraints. Sears, on the other hand, introduced and successfully marketed the Discover card during that era, which is still plugging along. Probably to be more like GE, which used to have a big financial services division. There's nuance here.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        In the 80s, Sears was this sort of meandering store with no real identity that had some strong points (Craftsman) but had mostly mediocre clothing--they brought in Lands End but mis-managed. Were OK in appliances but big box vendors really out-competed them. And Walmart really outcompeted on discount. I did shop at Sears at one point especially after I bought a house but they became increasingly uninteresting relative to alternatives.
throwup238 2y ago
I think the Costco Idiocracy scene is probably going to be the most prescient portrayal of the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdNmOOq6T8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdNmOOq6T8Y Trantor is the seat of a galactic empire with thousands if not millions of planets supplying its population. Skynet by Haliburton-Costco-TraderJoes will eat the world long before we're interplanetary.
- pmarreck 2y ago
  Idiocracy is a rare example of something that is aging like cheese instead of milk.
  - deepfriedchokes 2y ago
    That’s clever, but I think it’s just us that’s aging. When you’re young and dumb and full of… optimism, you don’t really notice how fucked up everything and everyone is. It just hasn’t sunken in yet.
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      You sound like you could use a vacation, or just a walk in the forest, or maybe some free time, or being blunt, oral attention from another.
  - dole 2y ago
    We can only hope Terry Crews runs for president.
buescher 2y ago
Big box stores are really qualitatively different from what a department store was - although the department store's brilliant marketing innovation of letting customers handle the merchandise as if it was already theirs led to big box discount stores and supermarkets. Merchandising and decor have been going downhill in even the best mall anchor stores for decades, so maybe the gap isn't as big now, but it was a really different shopping experience within living memory.
- mc32 2y ago
  This is going to sound sexist, or youthist... but... dep't stores used to hire young people for many of the display cases, either gals or guys --of course they had the "patronly" guy for serious things, like suits and so on, but for many things they had something not quite over the top like the buxom and ripped "kids" A&F had, but the guys and gals were not frumpy... these days it's different.
  - buescher 2y ago
    For the displays? Rarely. But as salespeople, well, that too. There's probably a whole lot to unpack in the why of that, but there just aren't as many young people, more of them are fat, and on the whole people don't dress as carefully. As an aside, I've lived away from urban areas for a while now, so maybe I am not the best judge, but I would be dumbstruck today by a first-rate window display in a downtown retail store.
    - jerlam 2y ago
      Having a job, any job, as a teenager is now looked upon as something that makes you look poor, and in many states the minimum wage is barely worth the effort. Wealthy parents would rather their children spend their time doing more studying or extracurriculars, since both of those have a better return when applying for colleges than any retail job.
      - t-3 2y ago
        It's also just a hassle that neither employers nor the prospective employees want to deal with. Tons of rules and regulations for the boss, very limited working hours, and the risk of an immature kid suddenly quitting without notice or throwing a tantrum. The kids have to get a work permit from their school, have to find someone willing to hire them (for probably less than the adult minimum wage), and then do the type of menial and unrewarding drudgery that drives working adults to despair. The days boomers talk about - when a kid could start work at 14 and make money worth spending and get useful experience - are long gone.
Earw0rm 2y ago
Not exactly - part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department. And the sales pitch is one of high value, you might even say beauty or care. Costco/Walmart are, from a European perspective, more like a "cash and carry" wholesaler masquerading as retail. There is very little effort made to present the goods, it's all about high volume and the lowest possible price. They're equivalent to our supermarkets/hypermarkets, but even bigger and broader in scope. This might sound like I'm stanning for department stores but not really. They're way more expensive than Amazon or discount retail, priced more like a specialist, and the quality and expertise doesn't always match the presentation. You can easily end up paying specialist prices for Amazon quality if you're not careful. Anyway, I think their time is up, perhaps with a few high-end exceptions surviving as a luxury tourist experience. In central London, we've a department store just for toys - like an old-fashioned and upmarket Toys'R'Us - and today's generation are basically un-wowed. Like, sure it has a lot of stock, but the big etail operators have a lot more again. And you don't have to travel 40 minutes to look at it.
- jasode 2y ago
  >part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department. And the sales pitch is one of high value, you might even say beauty or care. Yes, exactly. To add to that, the salespeople in each department got a percentage sales commission. E.g. at Sears department store, the salesperson in jewelry dept was on a commission structure. The salesman working the Sears appliance center got a commission when the customer bought a washer & dryer or refrigerator; same situation in the Sears furniture department when a customer bought a sofa. In contrast, the big-box discount stores like Walmart and HomeDepot have hourly paid employees without sales commissions.
  - JoshTriplett 2y ago
    That is an excellent reason not to go to such places. For some stores, "we don't work on commission" is a selling point to the customer.
    - 2y ago
tivert 2y ago
> Seems like they just got so much bigger that we don't even recognize them as a department store. Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, et. al. are just variations on the theme. I don't think so. Home Depot is clearly a big hardware store / lumber yard. Costco may carry many kinds of merchandise, shelved roughly according to type, I don't think it really qualifies as it has unspecialized staff (and very few of them), little selection within each type of item, and probably its only true "department" is the tire department. The only thing you list that could arguably be a department store is Walmart, and I think the reason it's not recognized as one isn't because of its size, but because it's been drained of all glamor. And none of them (at least in their non "super" sizes) are subjectively much bigger than the old mall department stores.
- buescher 2y ago
  Walmart and Target are discount department stores, which is a different niche. K-mart is closing their last store, incidentally. There used to be more of them, too, and more regional ones.
  - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
    Kmart stores are still doing very well in Australia and New Zealand, with 325 locations serving a population less than 1/10th the size of the US. However, Australian/New Zealand Kmart stores have had no connection to American Kmart stores since the 90s, when Kmart Corporation sold them off to an Australian company that has managed them much more effectively.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Tbh Home Depot is to lumber what gas stations are to sandwiches. Actually this is unfair to gas station sandwiches, but you get the idea.
  - silisili 2y ago
    Mine is an enigma. The lumber is indoors, but is always soaking wet. It's infuriating. One time while digging through a pile of 2x4s, an employee asked if I needed anything. I sarcastically asked what time they watered the lumber each day, so I could try to come get some before then. He just deadpan said "uh...I'm not sure."
adamc 2y ago
The experience of something like Walmart is so much degraded from, say, the Marshall Field's I grew up with in Chicago, that... no. They are nothing like classic department stores. They are more like a modern K-mart.
- jhbadger 2y ago
  Even Macy's (which is what took over Marshall Field's) is a far, far inferior experience to classy classic stores like Marshall Field's.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Seems like they just got so much bigger that we don't even recognize them as a department store. Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, et al. are just variations on the theme. That's not an issue of size; Walmart, Costco, and Home Depot are smaller than department stores are. And department stores have gotten smaller over time; they used to be much bigger than they are now, which you can see by visiting a flagship store.
melagonster 2y ago
Thank you, You just randomly use Trantor as an example, Give me a warm feeling :)
harimau777 2y ago
Stores like Walmart don't provide the same level of service that department stores did. The staff at department stores were generally expected to more or less present as professionals and act as salespeople. The staff at Walmart more or less present as bored and spend most of their time stocking shelves. The staff at department stores were expected to have some level of expertise in their department. The staff at Walmart often seem to only have a vague idea of what products they sell.

ScienceKnife 2y ago

I buy about 99% of what I consume online, so yeah, I would guess that old, large, and wasteful ventures will eventually die out.

atourgates 2y ago

While "a major department store in every town" is probablty a thing of the past, my impression is that at least in major European capitals, the "national" department stores are still going strong. I make it a point to try and visit them when I can. A couple hours in Selfridges in London, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Stockmann in Helsinki, Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm or Magasin du Nord in Copenhagen will tell you something about the country you're visiting, and keep you well entertained. I never buy anything outside of maybe a snack from their over-the-top food halls (most recently Moomin-shaped-gummies in Helsinki), or a sometimes surprisingly affordable lunch at one of their lunch counters (it's hard to beat the view you get along with your lunch or apéro at the top Galeries Lafayette on their terrace). But in any case, none of these flagships have ever seemed empty or disused. On the contrary, I'm always surprised that while I might be astounded by the prices on display, there are always hundreds of local shoppers who seem to be quite happy to pay them.

tpm 2y ago
I also enjoy El Corte Ingles in Spain. Sadly the German department stores seem to be dying and in the eastern countries the stores died in the 90's after the fall of communism.
heikkilevanto 2y ago
Couple of years ago I went to Helsinki for my birthday, and got a gift card for Stockmann department store. I was so disappointed. I found the "department" for cooking things. But I did not find a section for frying pans or scissors. I found a section for Fiskars brand, and others. Fiskars had frying pans, scissors, and everything they make, up to and almost including their wood splitting axes. Other brands had their frying pans, pots, cutting boards, aprons, salt shakers, and whatever. I felt that I was supposed to decide first on what brand I wanted, and then what kind of thing. Maybe some people shop that way, but for me it certainly didn't work. Same thing with Magasin du Nord in Copenhagen. All about brands. A little bit of friendly service, but nothing special. But yes, they are busy with tourists and even some locals shopping. Glad we still have a few shops that specialize in the kind of things they sell, and can provide good service. That is the kind of shops I want to support, even at a bit higher prices.

mullingitover 2y ago

This isn't terribly surprising: it's an inferior business model to online sales. They put too many obstacles between the customer and the checkout counter. The customer had to travel, potentially long distances. Then they had to wander the aisles looking for the product, compare it without any unbiased third party reviews. Then they had to travel back home. This all added friction, not to mention the overall price of the products. All the opulence of those stores came from high operating costs, which were ultimately borne by the customer. The sales staff expertise came with commission-based sales, which meant you could never really trust the salesperson because they had a vested interest in making a sale whether the product was good or not. Mourning the loss of department stores is like bemoaning the loss of fancy horse carriages.

com2kid 2y ago
Compare that to todays model where I get to spend hours scrolling through Amazon listings of mostly the same product sold by different vendors, except occasionally there are small (but significant) differences. I don't get to see or touch the product until it arrives. For the product categories that still have recognizable brands (fewer and fewer every day it seems like) I am 100% reliant upon online reviewers, many of whom are biased and paid by the brands they are supposed to be reviewing. Amazon makes a lot of money by showing ads on their own site, so they are incentivized to keep me scrolling through page after page of listings crammed with ads, for as long as I can tolerate before I actually do make a purchase.
- musicale 2y ago
  I'm a fan of the seemingly randomly chosen brand names on Amazon.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  I buy a lot online and almost never on amazon, preferring shops focusing on a specific domain. I am pretty sure amazon/aliexpress model will be dying too at some point, because of the search nightmare, inexistent warranty and unreliable reviews.
- 2y ago

iso8859-1 2y ago

Department stores are doing great in Mexico. For example, the high rise Mitikah in CDMX was recently completed, and it has a mall complete with metro access, cinema and a giant department store chain called Liverpool. Pictures from the opening[0]. Another new mall, Portal Norte is under construction in Naucalpan, a suburb.[1] Not sure whether it will feature a Liverpool but I would almost be surprised if it wouldn't. I went to Puebla last month and it has a whole neighborhood of malls called Angelopolis, including bike paths to connect them.[2] The last mall opened in 2018.[3] I love malls because they are car free, pretty plants and have armed guards. It feels safer than being in the street. [0]: https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolmexico/posts/liverpool-m%C3%ADtikah-abre-sus-puertas-conoce-nuestra-%C3%BAltima-tienda-al-sur-de-la-ciu/10160354259016217/ https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolmexico/posts/liverpool-m%C... [1]: https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/edomex/portal-norte-es-un-monstruo-que-nos-preocupa-vecino-de-ciudad-satelite-edomex/ https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/edomex/portal-norte-es-un-mon... [2]: https://www.corazondepuebla.com.mx/descubre/parque-lineal/ https://www.corazondepuebla.com.mx/descubre/parque-lineal/ [3]: https://www.e-consulta.com/nota/2017-12-14/ciudad/abre-solesta-centro-comercial-de-lujo-frente-angelopolis https://www.e-consulta.com/nota/2017-12-14/ciudad/abre-soles...

prmoustache 2y ago
Well, Mexico is doing everything US does but with a 30 to 50 years delay so that is not really suprising.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  Mexico is doing everything the US did of what? This isn't an explanation, but just a random idea.

openrisk 2y ago

The department store embodies middle-class consumerism of the 20th century. While consumerism is going stronger than ever, the same cannot be said about the middle class. The shopping experience of the department store (pleasant environment, individual attention by knowledgeable salespeople etc.) is now only to be found in upmarket boutique shops, whereas hoi polloi are being served by goods distribution systems that are essentially automated.

colechristensen 2y ago
The department store embodies old lady consumerism. It's where you go to find mediocre but overpriced products. It's where your mom bought clothes for you that you didn't really like. It's where your mom still shops. The pricing structure is based on making moms feel like they got a good deal on a "sale", but actually everything is just overpriced and you can't get things with the appropriate price unless you play their dumb game. There are stories about department stores stopping this and losing lots of sales because their customers were addicted to it. They simply failed to change to attract new generations, their buyers couldn't buy for the next generation, so they kept targeting their aging customer base until they were gone and poof, no more department stores. You probably could do a new generation of department store targeting younger folks, but it would have to be much different. Probably won't happen. My last department store trip was to buy socks, they didn't have what I wanted, then I paid an outrageous price for average athletic socks because I didn't have the right coupon, store card, flier, whatever. I wanted socks more than I wanted to go through the trouble of buying nicer or cheaper ones on the Internet as I was already there. Kohls has a deal where they will give you a substantial coupon if you return something from Amazon to the store. Fuck me though, I'm not going to do the obvious scam. I'd feel less ripped off spending $50 per sock at Hermes.
- spiffotron 2y ago
  I think UK and US department stores are actually very very different. UK department stores generally only stock super high end designer gear, and sales / coupons are very very rare.

hinkley 2y ago

The whole time I grew up Department Stores were not functioning like old school department stores. With the exception of the cosmetics area in Macy’s and Penny’s that’s still pretty true. Meanwhile Best Buy is looking more like an old school department store, with sections for one vendor.

pmarreck 2y ago

There is a department store in Berlin called KaDeWe that is definitely worth a visit if it is doomed. It is probably the coolest department store I've ever seen.

jhbadger 2y ago
Absolutely. It is probably the best existing example of the classic department store (not discount store like WalMart or the current version of Macy's) that is basically already gone in the US.
rangestransform 2y ago
kadewe was amazing for finding brands that only dinky boutiques would carry in north america, only store outside of japan i've seen carry undercover

dugmartin 2y ago

We lost our local family owned department store a few years when the CEO retired. Walking around in there was like stepping back in time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%27s_(department_store) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%27s_(department_store)

twic 2y ago
There's an independent (ish) department store near me, Selby's, that's just about still going, somehow: https://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/pages/james-selby https://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/pages/james-selby And another that is no longer so near me, Boswells, that very sadly isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boswells_of_Oxford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boswells_of_Oxford - it was a frequent destination for homewares as a student, and then many years later, for last-minute christmas shopping as an uncle.

langsoul-com 2y ago

Go to Asia, the department store is not dead in the slightest. Though, definitely changed a lot.

conductr 2y ago
That would make sense as it’s essentially a middle class novelty and their middle class is still rather novel.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  Novel where? I don't think this is a good explanation. Japan has had department stores for the better part of the last century.
  - conductr 2y ago
    Sure, Japan is probably one of the largest exceptions in all of Asia. I wasn't making a absolute statement, more relative. So in general directional terms, I guess I was thinking more so of China/India (that are individually over 10x Japan's population) and have a middle class consumer for only a couple decades now. Many other countries are closer to mirroring China than Japan and some don't even apply here because they don't have a significant middle class yet. I thought it would be obvious that China/India is most of Asia.
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InDubioProRubio 2y ago

The switch to massive, centralized logistics, is itself a indicator of the impending death of a society. It removes the little local depots that are department stores, thus allowing supply-chain "kicks" to come in ever harder. If you remove dampening elements, the resulting system is more agile but also more fragile and potentially self-destructive.

halfmatthalfcat 2y ago
Impending death based on what? There’s plenty of boutiques that cater to things above “the necessities”, like groceries or clothes. Why do we need mom and pop grocery? It’s not efficient. Take a look around at the amount of thrift or boutique clothings shops, they’re small but large in number and it’s not even including purely online boutique. People who cry about the death of the corner store have insane tunnel vision.
- jetrink 2y ago
  I loved living around the corner from a small grocery store. It made it possible to pick up ingredients and fresh vegetables for dinner on the walk home from the train or when taking the dog for a walk with my wife. It was a bit more expensive, but that was offset by the fact that buying only what you need for the next couple of days leads to less spoilage and waste. Overall, our food budget has remained about the same since we had to move away. Where I live now, it takes 15-20 minutes to drive to the grocery store, so it's only practical to shop once per week. Shopping is a big chore and a fight with traffic, not a nice walk. It means I need to dedicate more of my apartment to food storage and more of my time to meal planning. It's certainly not an efficiency gain for me personally. On the plus side, the large store does have 73 different flavors of potato chips.
  - IanCal 2y ago
    How centralised the logistics are doesn't seem to me to be all that related to the size and number of the shops. For example, here there's Tesco. But there's huge tescos, tiny ones in towns, tiny ones outside of towns, subsidiary companies like onestop that exclusively are smaller shops (we tend to call them "corner shops" here). If anything, a larger central logistics "engine" behind it should make it much easier to pop up a new shop somewhere as most of the issues are solved and there's experience in doing it. It does however make things more boring.

janalsncm 2y ago

I’ve traveled to many places where stores seem to be doing just fine. They have too many employees, even, by American standards. I think it comes down to the cost of real estate. Both for the store, but also for employees’ housing. Higher rents mean people need to be paid more which means fewer employees and a worse experience. I don’t know who came up with the “30% of your salary” rule for housing, but it was probably the same person who came up with the “3 months salary for a ring” rule. It seems made up. 30% is way too high. I’d love to see a survey of these factors globally. I think we put up with things in America because we don’t know any better.

pjc50 2y ago
> 30% is way too high Underestimate in many circumstances. Poor people living in UK cities are paying up to 50% of their income in housing. https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IFS-Report-Housing-costs-and-income-inequality-in-the-UK.pdf https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IFS... (the Georgists have a point; over time, rentiers gradually capture more and more of an economy) Also department stores are a victim of a gradient across the globe. You want a westerner, standing in a western city, to spend time with you selling you a product? Of course all those things are staggeringly expensive. See also healthcare.
pistoleer 2y ago
Everything in every society is just "made up".
- grecy 2y ago
  Sure, and some of those things were made up thousands of years ago and have proven to work well since. Others were made up in the last 30 years by global corporations trying to extract maximum profit as fast as possible, future be damned.
chiefalchemist 2y ago
> I don’t know who came up with the “30% of your salary” Well of course, it was "the experts". You know... "THE experts". I wish I had $20 for everytime the media parrots something without every questioning it. And the masses nod mindlessly and think, "Yes, of course." In this case... Landlords, banks and real estate agents - all with an interest in higher === better - are the likely candidates for "the experts".

Double_a_92 2y ago

For me personally they are just not a very attractive place. At best you get the grocery section and the shoe store. Everything else is usually too expensive, doesn't offer a good variety and quality of products, or is highly targeted at teenage girls for some reason. As a guy I honestly don't know where to go shopping for clothes... I just have to hope for occasional random finds.

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randomdata 2y ago
Groceries seem quite unusual for a department store, with their focus on quality and luxury (or at least the illusion of), and food being commoditized. Are you, perhaps, thinking of discount department stores? Groceries are quite commonly found there, but they are something quite different.`

TheAdamist 2y ago

I've come to the conclusion that men will eventually just be naked in the future. Every time i go to shop for clothes in the USA the men's section has shrunk and the women's has gotten larger. Or we will all eventually just dress like steve jobs, just pairs of the one legal compliance shirt and pants combo available for sale.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Jeans that are acceptable and T-shirts made of whatever "ring-spun Egyptian cotton" that is cheap enough to feel like polyester and probably is
consteval 2y ago
The men's clothes are still larger than they were in the 80s. Really men's clothing right now is just a game of doing whatever gay men do but, like, 5 years later. So that means in a year or two men's clothes will be back to thick pant legs, flares, and maybe even pleats. Don't worry, the cropped shirts and booty shorts was just a phase.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  I don't think the booty shorts phase with gay men has ended yet, still very much see it in places like ptown. (however I do acknowledge that ptown is a bit of a bubble...) Personally I am waiting for the long earings to catch on outside of gay men.
randomdata 2y ago
I'm told there is a growing trend of men wearing "women's" clothing. Perhaps the eventual outcome is that we will all wear the same thing (whatever women consider to be fashionable)?
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silver_silver 2y ago
I'm a 6'4" man and bought two pairs of trousers from the women's section recently. They fit perfectly but granted are what would have been marketed as "plus size" in the past. Would encourage everyone who doesn't mind a less utilitarian look to try it. There's a much, much wider variety of pieces and it's cheaper too - especially for more formal styles.

black_13 2y ago

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mythrwy 2y ago

I remember the early/mid 70's when I was a little kid and department stores with multiple floors, elevators and escalators and Santa. They were nice. But buying something at the time was en event (at least for my family) too. A small microwave was hundreds of dollars (in 1970s dollars). A TV was a giant purchase. It seemed to start changing in the 80s when the "Mallrats" style malls came to prominence followed by the big box stores in late 80's/90's.