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>part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department That's been unusual in the United States for at least a generati
by buescher 2y ago
>part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department
That's been unusual in the United States for at least a generation. Nordstrom is a notable exception. Department stores have shed departments, too. The camera counters hung on for a while after other electronics and toys had gone to big box stores, but they've gone the way of the candy and nut counter.
- chefandy 2y agoYeah. At best, most I've been to over the past couple decades seem to have roving cashiers that went through a program about how to be irritatingly salesy and might know where a specific thing was in their department. Sears was barely better than K-Mart in its death throes after the CEO decided to embrace the Hunger Games organizational strategy.
- shiroiushi 2y agoAs I remember it, Sears was basically gutted by its CEO, Eddie Lampert, for his own personal profit at the expense of the company.
- chefandy 2y agoFrom what I read, he theorized that internal competition was the only way to incentivize efficiency rather than being propped up by the rest of the company. Essentially, made each division compete for funding, which naturally lead to undermining and backstabbing— for example, the retail division started undercutting Kenmore with other brands— and eventually it all collapsed.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoLampert failed at the personal profiting part big time: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/business/sears-edward-lampert-bankruptcy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/business/sears-edward-lam... Probably one of the worst business moves in the 2000s.
- harimau777 2y agoGrowing up there was a outdoors/sports store called Galyans where every department was staffed by people who actually participated in that activity. It was an amazing experience both because you were buying equipment from someone who actually knew what you needed and because talking to them was a great way to, for lack of a better term, start getting encultured into the community built around the hobby you were starting.
- buescher 2y agoREI in the US is sort of like that.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> talking to them was a great way to, for lack of a better term, start getting encultured into the community The normal term is "acculturated".