department stores...

[davestlouis]

I wonder how long the traditional department store will exist. Macy's bought May Company 5+ years ago, and I have not even set foot in a Macy's store yet. Chances are, I may never. I wonder how many other people are either thrifting or making their own, or shopping at Target and Kohl's and other lower-tier retailers.

I thrift because I'm a tightwad and I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, but I can't be the only one avoiding the mall. The other issue is the poorly behaved teens running rampant at the mall...all the more reason to stay away.

 

[David Conwill]

I think the traditional department store could survive, perhaps even thrive, if it moved out of the mall and back downtown. This could be a mutually beneficial arrangement, too, as the downtown retailers (and often the municipality, as the mall is usually outside of the city limits) would benefit from having an anchor “draw”. Further, there’s now loads of downtown housing in many communities that was built because it’s now hip to live someplace denser, but the “walkability” draw is lacking in most communities because to buy anything for daily life, you’ve got to drive out to the ‘burbs.

Malls and box stores will always be around, I’m afraid, just like Chinese manufacturing isn’t going anywhere. For the traditional establishment, the only way to compete is by offering something nicer for a little more, and attracting those of us who are still looking for that.

I’ve noticed lately that in my area Target has moved considerably down-market (the Target in Saginaw only just reintroduced suits after about a six-month hiatus), to the point I’ve started referring to it as “T-mart”. I think this is a distinctly bad idea, as it puts them squarely against our friend Sam from Arkansas. I’ve said for years that instead K-mart should be re-branding itself as Kresge’s and trying to give shoppers a more Target-like experience. The experts must disagree, I guess.

It’s funny that you mention Kohl’s as being a lesser brand, because to me it’s the epitome of what department store shopping was like when I was a kid - only back then it was J.C. Penney and Sears. I guess that comes from growing up in blue-collar towns.

-Dave

 

[davestlouis]

I had forgotten about Penney's...they have some decent deals on shirts and other odds and ends. My mother had a "thing" about Sears...hated the place and thought that only hillbillies from Kentucky shopped there( We lived in Ohio) She would buy scratch and dent appliances from the Sears warehouse store, and that was it!

K-Marts around here are such dumps that I can't believe they're still open. We keep getting these humongous 135,000 sq ft Super WalMarts opening around here, they're even killing the local supermarket chains.

One thing in the local retail market that I have been pleasantly surprised by is Aldi's(Albrecht Discount)...cheap prices, decent food items, clean stores. That can't be helping the traditional supermarket chains either.

Several local malls have either died or are in the process of doing so. I say good riddance. I have fond memories of going downtown at Christmastime with my grandma, seeing Santa and looking at the store window displays at Mabley& Carey(out of business), Shillito's(out of business), Pogue's(out of business) and other local retailers that have either disappeared altogether or have been swallowed up by Dillard's and Macy's. I don't think modern families are geared toward making pilgramages downtown to shop, but it would be cool if they did.

 

[David Conwill]

don't think modern families are geared toward making pilgramages downtown to shop, but it would be cool if they did.

You’re right about that. Downtown will probably never will be like it was in the pre-suburbia heyday. That way of life was on its way out even in the 1920s due to the automobile, but the Depression and the War slowed it way down. That doesn’t mean it can’t thrive, even prosper, though. The downtown just needs to cater to a different clientele.

There’s a certain type of person who sees himself spending all day downtown: waking up in an apartment (or condo) in an old factory building, walking to work at the office on the second floor of some retailer, buying groceries for dinner at a downtown grocery, and walking home again. He would also like to buy his clothing and housewares in the shop below his office or apartment. He isn’t looking for cheap prices alone (which is what the modern family is usually seeking when they take the Toyonda Siennassy out to Super Wal Mart), he is looking for quality of life that comes from fewer, nicer things, and minimizing the headaches associated with driving congested streets to get to everything.

A lot of people view a downtown optimized for these folks as “gentrified”, I view it as appropriate and successful. Right now we’re in a situation where the poor people drive or ride the bus out to Super Wal Mart anyway, why should they get to monopolize the downtown too?

-Dave

 

[LizzieMaine]

Our nearest mall is fifty miles away, so we had a traditional downtown department store right up until the mid-90s, when Wal Mart came to town and ran it out of business within six months. And now that's *all* we have -- Wal Mart is it, period, and ours is the smallest Wal Mart in the United States, so it doesn't carry half the stuff the old department store did. We get the least of both worlds, department-store wise, which really stinks.

Meanwhile, the old department store building was taken over by a non-profit, which takes it off the tax rolls and ensures it'll be even harder for a Wal Mart competitor to come to town. Bah.

 

[Lady Day]

Same happened to my old hometown. We had a rather nice locally owned mall with two department stores and a grocery, and a movie house that had been there for 30+ years walking distance down the road. Well, the Wal-Mart came and decimated the area in 8 months. The whole mall shut down. Now there is this HUGE lot (I think they are going to build a Lowes), a mega Wal-Mart, across the street a mega Target, and a mega chain grocery on the other side of the block. Thats it.

Now if you want to go to a department store, like a Sears, or Macy's, you have to drive to another county. That angers me because now that tax money goes to that county, not your own. I wish more people paid attention to that stuff.

I do like department stores, I like looking, but Im a focused intent shopper. I go for what I want, and often thats not at any type of major store.

LD

 

[davestlouis]

We have a thriving loft district in downtown St Louis, but it really only accounts for maybe 5000 people who live there, and googobs of young adults who go drinking there on weekends. They have one fancy market, The Culinaria, and lots of bars and restaurants, not nearly enough population to support much retail. I live 40 miles from downtown, and haven't purposely gone there in years, except to take out of town friends down to the Gateway Arch.

Lizzie, that's a drag, having one crappy retailer and no alternatives. Unfortunately I suspect a lot of small towns are in the same boat.

The downtown stores also had very nice restaurants even in the 70s, so the special downtown excursion also included a visit to the restaurant on the 5th floor, or whatever it was, for lunch.

 

[laotou]

I have been thrifting for so long that when I went with a friend to a certain large chain discount store and saw they had some docker style pants on sale for $9.89 I thought, "Kind'a pricey for pants." I can't imagine what I'd think if I went to Macy's!

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

I wonder how long the traditional department store will exist. Macy's bought May Company 5+ years ago, and I have not even set foot in a Macy's store yet. Chances are, I may never. I wonder how many other people are either thrifting or making their own, or shopping at Target and Kohl's and other lower-tier retailers.

I thrift because I'm a tightwad and I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, but I can't be the only one avoiding the mall. The other issue is the poorly behaved teens running rampant at the mall...all the more reason to stay away.

I've thought about that myself. I really hate going into malls, and far prefer thrift shops, antique shops, Wal-Mart , and eBay for items. I do, and it is probably no exaggeration, 99% of my shopping online.

I'm not the type that buys for the sake of buying, so what I have is few, but also very nice. I far prefer a stroll in the local Salvation Army or consignment shop, or antique shop, to getting into a mall any day.

Like you, I'm a tightwad and also enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

I also view malls as magnets for teenagers - which is another reason why I prefer to avoid them.

 

[Lady Day]

All malls seem to be the same now as well, all over the country. The same 20-30 stores in every mall.

They have a Macy's, Sears, Neiman Marcus, Pennys, Koles, etc, then its all Hot Topics, Ambercrombie, Beniton, Gap, Old Navy, Bath and Body, etc. Gag!

LD

 

[Tomasso]

Sears, Roebuck and Co. killed its share of mom & pops back in the day. I wonder if they got as much hate as today's' big boxes...........

 

[davestlouis]

I don't imagine that Sears put up a store every 5 miles like WalMart seems to be doing around here. Walgreens is also aggressive around here, I read somewhere that their research shows that people won't travel more than 5 miles, give or take, for a pharmacy, so they put up stores very close together to cover just about anyone. CVS is coming into this market too, throwing up stores on opposite corners from Walgreens, I haven't been in one of their stores yet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was the A&P that small town activists hated in the teens and twenties, the scourge of small town grocers. Sears was seen as a pretty benign presence compared to the evil home of Jane Parker Bread and Eight O'Clock Coffee.

Walgreens tried to bulldoze half a residential neighborhood here last year -- about two blocks from where I live -- but they got their backsides handed to them in a referendum, and they slunk out of town. Money might talk, but some of us are sick of hearing it.

 

[davestlouis]

Walgreens must be making money by the bucketful...they'll build a store, and within 10 years, build a nicer one on a more visible corner a block or two away, and rent the old store for some other type of retail.

I don't particularly care for Walgreens, but when it's 4AM, you just got a kiddo out of the ER and you have 3 prescriptions to be filled, there's not much choice but to go to Walgreens.

 

[Tomasso]

I don't imagine that Sears put up a store every 5 miles

No, they put one in everybody's mailbox.

 

[davestlouis]

Good point tomasso...I had forgotten all about the catalog. My grandfather loved that book, swore he kept one in the outhouse and tore out pages as needed when he was young.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The bulk of Sears mail order business was far-rural -- farmers living in one-horse towns where the main commercial artery was a railroad siding. They might have annoyed the operators of Sam Drucker-type general stores, but for a lot of people, even that kind of store was a day's ride away.

This was true until well after WW2 -- nearly half of any Sears catalog for the first half of the 20th century was devoted to farm goods.

 

[davestlouis]

Who delivered the Sears catalog items to far-rural areas? Some of those items were huge. Nevermind, I just reread your post...the railroad was right there, I suppose they would have shipped bulky items.

 

[Tomasso]

My grandfather loved that book, swore he kept one in the outhouse and tore out pages as needed when he was young.

Haha! I learned of the catalog's secondary use just the other day on the History Channel's Modern Marvels (Bathroom Tech). Who knew!?!?

 

[davestlouis]

Pop used to laugh about the catalog in the 70s because some of e pages were shiny...he told me the shiny pages wouldn't have worked too well for the secondary purpose.