Department store

File:Kuopion Sokos2 - Haapaniemenkatu 24-26 - Multimäki - Kuopio - m.jpg department store building in Multimäki, Kuopio, Finland]]

Department stores can be classified in several ways:

• Mainline department store or simply, the traditional department store, offering mid- to high-end goods, most or at least some of the time at the full retail price. Examples are Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, Sears and Belk.{{cite news |title=Off Price Is The New Black For Retailers |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/off-price-black-retailers-202300176.html |publisher=Investor's Business Daily |date=8 September 2015}}
• Junior department store, a term used principally in the second part of the 20th century for a smaller version of a mainline department store. These were usually either independent stores, or chains such as Boston Store and Harris & Frank, which specialized in cosmetics and wearing apparel and accessories, with few home goods.{{cite book |last1=McKeever |first1=James Ross |title=Shopping Center Development Handbook |date=1977 |publisher=University of Michigan |isbn=9780874205763 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HI9PAAAAMAAJ |access-date=2 July 2020}}{{cite news | last1=Moriarty | first1=John Jr. |title=Change in Philosophy, Direction Is Behind McCain's Move to Mall |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/54613734/the-plight-of-the-junior-department/ |access-date=2 July 2020 |publisher=The Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) |date=12 July 1981}}
• Discount department store, a large discount store selling apparel and home furnishings at a discount, either selling overstock from mainline department stores, or merchandise especially made for the discount department store market. Examples are Nordstrom Rack, Saks Off 5th, Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, TJ Maxx, and Kohl's.{{Cite web|title=Off Price Is The New Black For Retailers|url=http://finance.yahoo.com/news/off-price-black-retailers-202300176.html|access-date=29 August 2021|website=finance.yahoo.com|date=8 September 2015 |language=en-US}}

Some sources may refer to the following types of stores as department stores, even though they are not generally considered as such:

• Hypermarkets (discount superstores with full grocery offerings, such as Target, Walmart and Carrefour)[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hypermarket.asp "Hypermarket", Investopedia]
• Variety stores, also known in the U.S. as five and dimes, or dollar stores

One of the first department stores may have been Bennett's in Derby, first established as an ironmonger (hardware shop) in 1734.{{cite news|author=Natalie Loughenbury|date=6 January 2010|title=Bennetts Irongate, Derby Celebrates Its 275th Anniversary|work=Derbyshire Life|publisher=Bennets|url=https://www.bennettsofderby.co.uk/history/|access-date=6 September 2021}} It continued trading in the same building until its administation and closure in 2019.{{cite news |title=Bennetts: Green light for plan to transform former Derby store |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-67588057 |access-date=20 May 2025 |publisher=BBC}} However, the first reliably dated department store to be established, was Harding, Howell & Co., which opened in 1796 on Pall Mall, London.{{Cite web|url=http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency/shoppingmalls.htm|title=Regency England shopping arcades exchanges and bazaars|website=hibiscus-sinensis.com}} The oldest department store chain may be Debenhams, which was established in 1778 and closed in 2021. It is the longest trading defunct British retailer. An observer writing in Ackermann'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.{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/repositoryofarts109acke|title=The Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions and politics|first=Rudolph|last=Ackermann|date=3 August 1809|publisher=London : Published by R. Ackermann ... Sherwood & Co. and Walker & Co. ... and Simpkin & Marshall ...|via=Internet Archive}}

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 of consumer goods in different departments. Jonathan Glancey for the BBC 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 the Industrial 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/bespoke/story/20150326-a-history-of-the-department-store/index.html|title=A history of the department store|website=BBC Culture|access-date=15 September 2019}}

File:Harrod's (50718173793).jpg illuminated exterior at night in Knightsbridge, London]]

This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820 when the business partnership was dissolved. All the major High Streets in British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century. Increasingly, women became the main customers.Alison Adburgham, Shops and Shopping, 1880–1914: Where and in What Matter the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes (2nd ed. 1981) 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 to House of Fraser. The Manchester institution dates back to 1836 but had been trading as Watts Bazaar since 1796.{{cite book|last=Parkinson-Bailey|first=John|title=Manchester an architectural history|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|year=2000|pages=80–81|isbn=0-7190-5606-3}} 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.{{cite news |title=Historic Derry department store Austins closes after 186 years |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/historic-derry-department-store-austins-closes-after-186-years-1.2565229 |access-date=15 April 2024 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}{{cite news |title=Task Force for iconic Edwardian Austins building in Derry city centre established |url=https://www.derryjournal.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/task-force-for-iconic-edwardian-austins-building-in-derry-city-centre-established-3939407 |access-date=15 April 2024 |work=Derry Journal}} Lewis's of Liverpool operated from 1856 to 2010. The world's first Christmas grotto opened in Lewis's in 1879, entitled 'Christmas Fairyland'.{{cite news |title=Liverpool's record breaking Christmas grotto beloved by generations |url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/liverpools-record-breaking-christmas-grotto-25517874 |access-date=15 April 2024 |work=Liverpool Echo}} Liberty & Co. in London's West End gained popularity in the 1870s for selling Oriental goods.Iarocci, L., Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling'', Ashgate Publishing, 2013, p. 128 In 1889, Oscar Wilde wrote "Liberty's is the chosen resort of the artistic shopper".{{cite book |last1=Wilde |first1=Oscar |title=The Woman's World ..., Volume 2 |date=1889 |publisher=Cassell and Company|page=6}}

File:Au Bon Marché (vue générale - gravure).jpg

The Paris department stores have roots in the magasin de nouveautés, or novelty store; the first, the Tapis Rouge, was created in 1784.{{Citation|chapter=Discovery, Invention and Innovation|pages=1–31|publisher=Springer US|isbn=9780792393030|doi=10.1007/978-0-585-32028-1_1|title=Informational Society|year=1993}} They flourished in the early 19th century. Balzac described their functioning in his novel César 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.{{cite book|last=Fierro|first=Alfred|title=Histoire et Dictionnaire de Paris|year=1996|pages=911–912}}

A novelty shop called Au Bon Marché had been founded in Paris in 1838 to sell items like lace, ribbons, sheets, mattresses, buttons, and umbrellas. It grew from {{convert|300|m2|ft2|abbr=on}} and 12 employees in 1838 to {{convert|50000|m2|ft2|abbr=on}} 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.{{cite book| title=The World of Department Stores| author=Jan Whitaker| page=22| publisher=Vendome Press| place=New York| year=2011| isbn=978-0-86565-264-4}}

Au Bon Marché soon had half a dozen or more competitors including Printemps, founded in 1865; La Samaritaine (1869), Bazar de Hotel de Ville (BHV); and Galeries Lafayette (1895).{{cite book |first=Michael B. |last=Miller |title=The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869–1920 |location=London |publisher=Allen & Unwin |year=1981 |isbn=0-04-330316-1 }} The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores.{{cite journal |first=Heidrun |last=Homburg |title=Warenhausunternehmen und ihre Gründer in Frankreich und Deutschland Oder: Eine Diskrete Elite und Mancherlei Mythen |trans-title=Department store firms and their founders in France and Germany, or: a discreet elite and various myths |journal=Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte |year=1992 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=183–219 |doi=10.1524/jbwg.1992.33.1.185 |s2cid=201653161 }} The great writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) set his novel {{Lang|fr|Au 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.{{cite journal |first=Frans C. |last=Amelinckx |title=The Creation of Consumer Society in Zola's Ladies' Paradise |journal=Proceedings of the Western Society for French History |year=1995 |volume=22 |pages=17–21 }}

Australia is notable for having the longest continuously operating department store, David Jones.{{Citation |last=Walsh |first=G. P. |title=Jones, David (1793–1873) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jones-david-2279 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=19 December 2022}} 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 of George and Barrack Streets in Sydney, 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.{{Cite journal |last=Ravelli |first=Louise |date=April 2022 |title=Ode to a lost icon, David Jones |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17504813211073195 |journal=Discourse & Communication |language=en |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=269–282 |doi=10.1177/17504813211073195 |s2cid=246463089 |issn=1750-4813|url-access=subscription }} Other department stores in Australia include Grace Bros founded in 1885, now merged with Myer which was founded in 1900.{{Cite journal |last=Loy-Wilson |first=Sophie |date=January 2016 |title=The Gospel of Enthusiasm: Salesmanship, Religion and Colonialism in Australian Department Stores in the 1920s and 1930s |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022009414561826 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |language=en |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=91–123 |doi=10.1177/0022009414561826 |s2cid=145570190 |issn=0022-0094|url-access=subscription }}

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."The Arnold Constable & Company Buildings" [http://blog.bryantpark.org/2013/05/from-archives-arnold-constable-company.html May 16, 2013] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513192017/http://blog.bryantpark.org/2013/05/from-archives-arnold-constable-company.html |date=13 May 2016 }}

In New York City in 1846, Alexander Turney Stewart established the "Marble Palace" on 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 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.{{Cite journal |jstor = 3112143|title = Alexander Turney Stewart and the Development of the Department Store, 1823–1876|journal = The Business History Review|volume = 39|issue = 3|pages = 301–322|last1 = Resseguie|first1 = Harry E.|year = 1965|doi = 10.2307/3112143|s2cid = 154704872}} In 1858, Rowland Hussey Macy founded Macy's as a dry goods store.

File:Marshall field interior.jpg

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.Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan, Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field & Company (1952) Marshall Field's served as a model for other department stores in that it had exceptional customer service.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} 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 use escalators.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} Marshall Field's book department in the State Street store was legendary;{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} 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.Wendt and Kogan, Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field & Company (1952)

In 1877, John Wanamaker opened what some claim was the United States' first "modern" department store in Philadelphia: 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.Robert Sobel, The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition (1974), chapter 3, "John Wanamaker: The Triumph of Content Over Form"

File:Anthony Hordern and Sons- 20th December 1936 (18832395934).jpg in Sydney, Australia (1936), once the largest department store in the world]]

File:Christmas Party For Trooper Devereux's Daughter- Christmas in Wartime, Pinner, Middlesex, December 1944 D23005.jpg in Oxford Street, London in wartime Britain (December 1944)]]

Another store to revolutionize the concept of the department store was Selfridges in London, established in 1909 by American-born Harry Gordon Selfridge on Oxford 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 to assist customers, but not too aggressively, and to sell the merchandise.J.A. Gere and John Sparrow (ed.), Geoffrey Madan's Notebooks, Oxford University Press, 1981 Selfridge attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits; in 1909, Louis Blériot's monoplane was exhibited at Selfridges (Blériot was the first to fly over the English Channel), and the first public demonstration of television by John Logie Baird took place in the department store in 1925.

File:Hiroshige, Sugura street.jpg designed an ukiyo-e print with Mount Fuji and Echigoya as landmarks. Echigoya is the former name of Mitsukoshi named after the former province of Echigo. The Mitsukoshi headquarters are located on the left side of the street.]]

In Japan, the first "modern-style" department store was Mitsukoshi, founded in 1904, which has its root as a kimono 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 in Ginza allowed street shoes to be worn indoors, something innovative at the time.[http://www.matsuzakaya.co.jp/corporate/history/honshi/index.shtml Matsuzakaya corporate history] 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 from railway companies. There have been many private railway operators in the nation and, from the 1920s, they started to build department stores directly linked to their lines' termini. Seibu and Hankyu are typical examples of this type.

In the middle of the 1920s, American management theories such as the scientific management of F.W. Taylor started spreading in Europe. The International 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 the International Association of Department Stores in Paris in 1928 to have a discussion space dedicated to this retail format.{{expand section|date=October 2020}}

{{expand section|date=October 2020}}

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, in suburban Los Angeles, The Broadway-Hollywood, Bullocks Wilshire, The May Company-Wilshire, Saks-Beverly Hills, as well as two Strawbridge and Clothier stores: Suburban Square (1930) and Jenkintown (1931) outside Philadelphia. Suburban Square was the first shopping center anchored by a department store.{{cite news | url= https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer/136267040/ |quote=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. | title= Setting the trend for, not in, stores | newspaper=The Philadelphia Inquirer | date= 25 April 1999 | accessdate=24 February 2010}} In the 1950s, suburban growth took off – for example, in 1952, May Company California opened a four-level, {{convert|346700|sqft|sqm|adj=on}}{{cite news |title=May Co. Opens Its vast New Lakewood Store (cont'd.) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-may-co-opens-its/136262536/ |access-date=4 December 2023 |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=19 February 1952 |page=26}} store in Lakewood Center near Los Angeles, at the time, the largest suburban department store in the world.{{cite news |title=May Co. Opens Its vast New Lakewood Store |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-may-co-opens-its/136261990/ |access-date=4 December 2023 |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=19 February 1952 |page=25}} However, only three years later it would build an even bigger, {{convert|452000|sqft|sqm|adj=on}} store in the San Fernando Valley at Laurel Plaza.

{{expand section|date=October 2020}}

{{See also|Department stores by country}}

{{See also|Retail apocalypse}}

Starting in 2010 many analysts referred to a retail apocalypse in the United States and some other markets, referring to the closing of brick-and-mortar retail stores, especially those of large chains.{{cite web |url= http://www.businessinsider.com/store-closures-in-2018-will-eclipse-2017-2018-1 |title=A tsunami of store closings is about to hit the US — and it's expected to eclipse the retail carnage of 2017 |last=Peterson |first=Hayley |date=1 January 2018 |website= businessinsider.com |access-date= 4 January 2018}} 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 during holiday peak periods, delayed effects of the Great Recession of 2008-9,{{cite magazine|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/retail-meltdown-of-2017/522384/|title=What in the World Is Causing the Retail Meltdown of 2017?|first=Derek|last=Thompson|date=10 April 2017|access-date=10 April 2017|magazine=The Atlantic}} shifts in spending to experiences rather than material goods, relaxed dress codes in workplaces, and the shift to e-commerce{{cite web |title=These haunting photos of the retail apocalypse reveal a new normal in America |url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/these-haunting-photos-of-the-retail-apocalypse-reveal-a-new-normal-in-america/ss-BByFpjX |website=Business Insider |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170408075056/https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/these-haunting-photos-of-the-retail-apocalypse-reveal-a-new-normal-in-america/ss-BByFpjX |archive-date=8 April 2017 |date=24 March 2017}} in which {{anchor|Amazon effect}}Amazon.com and Walmart 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.{{cn|date=May 2024}}

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.{{cite web |title=Click & Collect de Palacio de Hierro Polanco |url=https://fundamentalmx.com/proyectos/click-and-collect-palacio-de-hierro |website=Fundamental (Architects, Mexico) |access-date=5 December 2023}}

With the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, most U.S. retailers offered a curbside 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.{{cn|date=May 2024}}

{{Further|Department stores by country}}

Incomplete list, notable stores of {{cvt|50000|sqm|0|abbr=on}} 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.

*store has no branches

**opened at this location (may have expanded significantly in the years after initial opening)

• Department stores around the world
• List of department stores by country
• Distribution, Retail, Marketing
• History of retailing in the modern era
• Types of retail outlets
• International Association of Department Stores
• Retail apocalypse

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Refbegin|33em}}

• {{cite book|title=The Department Store: Its Origins, Evolution and Economics|last=Pasdermadjian|first=H.|location=London|publisher=Newman Books|year=1954|url=https://archive.org/details/departmentstore0000unse}}
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• Remus, Emily. A shoppers’ paradise: how the ladies of Chicago claimed power and pleasure in the new downtown (Harvard University Press, 2019).
• Samson, Peter. "The department store, its past and its future, a review article" Business History Review (1981), 55#1, pp. 26–34. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-history-review/article/abs/department-store-its-past-and-its-future-merchant-princes-an-intimate-history-of-jewish-families-who-built-great-department-stores-by-leon-harris-new-york-harper-and-row-1979-pp-xx-411-1295-the-grand-emporiums-the-illustrated-history-of-americas-great-department-stores-by-robert-hendrickson-new-york-stein-and-day-1979-pp-viii-488-1495-sears-roebuck-usa-the-great-american-catalog-store-and-how-it-grew-by-gordon-l-weil-new-york-stein-and-day-1977-pp-xiv-277-1095-shopping-in-style-london-from-the-restoration-to-edwardian-elegance-by-alison-adburgham-london-thames-and-hudson-1979-pp-192-1495/1F8EEB5CE540CE43E92D4275A582ADD0 online]
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• Schlereth, Thomas J. Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876–1915. (HarperCollins, 1991).
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{{Commons category|Department stores}}

• [https://www.historicaleye.com/ma-work/cathedrals-of-consumption.html Cathedrals of Consumption: The rise of the department store in Britain] - Historical Eye
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080222052814/http://www.lowermanhattan.info/about/history/did_you_know/did_you_know_that_62478.aspx About Lower Manhattan: History: Did you know: A.T. Stewart's Department Store (archived)] from LowerManhattan.info
• {{cite report | last=Tamilia | first=Robert D. | title=The Wonderful World of the Department Store in Historical Perspective: A Comprehensive International Bibliography Partially Annotated | year=2011 |publisher=Department of Marketing, École des sciences de la gestion, University of Quebec at Montreal | url=http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/charm/Docs/Department%20Store%20Bibliography.pdf | access-date=1 March 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019144610/http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/charm/Docs/Department%20Store%20Bibliography.pdf | archive-date=19 October 2013 | url-status=dead }} (292 KiB)
• [http://www.iads.org International Association of Department Stores]
• [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/09/22/030922fa_fact Under One Roof: The death and life of the New York department store] by Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, Sept. 14, 2003

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Category:Retail formats