Department store

A department store is a retail establishment engaged in retailing a wide range of products without a single predominant merchandise line. Department stores usually sell products including apparel, furniture, appliances, and additionally select other lines of products such as paint, hardware, toiletries, cosmetics, photographic equipment, jewelry, toys, and sporting goods. Certain department stores are further classified as discount department stores. Discount department stores usually have central customer checkout areas, generally in the front area of the store.

History

Hudson's Bay Company in Canada was the first store to include departments, however it was not a department store. In the 20th Century, in the wholesale business it started operating retail shops out in the West. In Paris in 1838 Aristide Boucicaut founded the first department store named Bon Marche, by 1852 it was the first department store that offered a wide variety of goods in "departments" inside one building. Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees allowing exchanges and refunds.

Related Topics:
Hudson's Bay Company - Canada - Store - 20th Century - Paris - 1838 - Bon Marche - 1852

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In New York City in 1846, Alexander Turney Stewart established the Marble Palace on the east-Broadway, 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 a Renaissance palazzo, the building's cast iron construction permitted large plate glass windows. In 1862 Stewart built a department store on a full city block at Broadway and 9th Street, opposite Grace Church, with eight floors and nineteen departments of dress goods and furnishing materials, carpets, glass and china, toys and sports equipment, ranged around a central glass-covered court. Within a couple of decades, New York's retail center had moved uptown, forming a stretch of retail shopping from Marble Palace, that was called the "Ladies' Mile". In 1858 Rowland Hussey Macy founded Macy's as a dry goods store. Benjamin Altman and Lord & Taylor soon competed with Stewart as New York's first department stores, later followed by "McCreary's" and, in Brooklyn, "Abraham & Strauss".

Related Topics:
New York City - 1846 - Alexander Turney Stewart - Marble Palace - Broadway - European - Renaissance - Palazzo - Cast iron - Plate glass - 1862 - New York - 1858 - Rowland Hussey Macy - Macy's - Lord & Taylor - Brooklyn

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Similar developments were under way in London (with Liberty And Company) and in Paris (with La Samaritaine) and in Chicago, where department stores sprang up along State Street, notably Marshall Field and Company, which remains the second-largest store in the world (after Macy's). In 1877, Wanamaker's opened in Philadelphia. Philadelphia's John Wanamaker performed a 19th century redevelopment to the former Pennsylvania Railroad terminal in that city, and eventually opened a modern day department store in the building.

Related Topics:
London - Liberty And Company - Paris - La Samaritaine - Chicago - Marshall Field and Company - 1877 - Wanamaker's - Philadelphia - John Wanamaker - 19th century - Redevelopment - Pennsylvania Railroad

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In the beginning, some department stores leased space to individual merchants, along the lines of the new change in late 17th-century London, but by 1900 the smaller companies were purchased or eventually replaced by the larger companies. In some ways they were very similar to our modern malls, where the property owner has no direct interest in the actual department store itself, other than to collect rent and provide utilities. Today only the most specialized departments are leased out. This could include photography and photo finishing, automotive services, or financial services. However this is rare, even a store's restaurant is usually run by the department store itself today.

Related Topics:
17th-century - London - 1900

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United Kingdom

In 1906, Harry Gordon Selfridge a junior partner in Marshall Field's, left America to set up a department store, Selfridges in London. After it opened in 1909 it stimulated wide-ranging changes to British retail practice. The term "department store" is used somewhat more narrowly in the UK than in the US, generally only being applied to stores with a very wide range of departments situated in city and town centre or indoor shopping centre locations. Examples would include Debenhams, John Lewis and House of Fraser.

Related Topics:
1906 - Harry Gordon Selfridge - Selfridges - London - 1909 - British - UK - US - Debenhams - John Lewis - House of Fraser

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