Department store

“ The department store has brought together, as has never been done before in history, a bewildering mass of delicate and beautiful fabrics, jewelry and household decorations such as women covet, gathered skilfully from all parts of the world, and in the midst of this bulk of desirable possessions is placed an untrained girl with careful instructions as to her conduct for making sales, but with no guidance in regard to herself. Such a girl may be bitterly lonely, but she is expected to smile affably all day long upon a throng of changing customers. ”

“ Here, then, is the receiving department of this great single retailing machine of modern business. It keeps over three hundred human units constantly upon the move—and, mind you, all that these people are doing is merely making the merchandise ready to sell. The next step is the final one before actual sale; the display of proffered goods—upon the counters and within the plate-glass windows along the street frontages.
This, in the modern department-store, is considered a feature of the utmost importance, and nowhere more so than at Macy's. ”

“ They are so concerned about their financial matters that they ignore what is more sacred—their duty toward their fellow-beings. By the way, I have just read of two more failures, one a shoe store and the other a grocery store, and both because of the department store evil! How can small dealers, with only a few hundred dollars behind them, expect to compete with firms whose capitals reach the millions? They are only the poor little fishes in the sea, while the department stores are sharks, sharp-toothed monsters of destruction! ”

“ You'd be surprised to know how hard it is to reform a department store. Some little things you'd never expect them to notice will be immediately remedied, while much more important needs will keep me hammering away for months. There are the aisle counters which I loathe. It's an old-fashioned way of doing bargain business; it interferes with traffic, it spoils the neat appearance of the shop. But I can't get Smith & Co. to change. Then my little crusade with the elevator boys kept me busy for a long time. ”

“ Occasionally I take trips to New York for new ideas, and then I outwork the most inveterate shopper or bargain hunter. I almost eat up the stores in my anxiety to find something new. It may be only a new neck-piece, or a way of running elevators, or it may be an innovation in system, a new method of arranging stock and selling it. This is my hardest work of all.
My eyes get positively tired with watching things. Any one who has walked all day up and down the aisles of a department store knows the jaded feeling that comes, the blur to the eyes, and the buzzing in the ears. ”

“ While it is true that large department stores reap many of the advantages and employ many of the methods of a chain store group, such as large capital, buying in quantity, and the ability to command the highest type of management, it is nevertheless evident that, whereas a department store spreads its efforts over a number of different sorts of shops under one roof, the chain store owner concentrates its energy upon the conduct of but one kind of stores located in many neighborhoods. ”

“ Should they desire to be shown through the store, it should be arranged. They should be impressed with the manner of doing business, and this effect is best secured where consideration is shown them. It is better to answer the inquiries of customers by accompanying them to the department asked for and requesting a salesperson to wait on them, rather than pointing to that department, and much better to name the salesperson than to use the word "forward." They should see that goods do not collect at any time at the parcel desks, but that they are removed by carriers promptly. ”

“ And that understanding today is quite as much an asset of Macy's as its real estate, its cash balances in the banks, or the millions of dollars standing in the stock upon its shelves.
More than a decade ago the big store in Herald Square first began to feel its own growing pains. The fact that ten years before that it had been planned as the largest single department-store building in the United States, if not in the entire world, availed nothing when business came in even greater measure than the most far-sighted of its planners had dared to dream. ”

“ Therefore, kind friends, take pride in the Department Store of your town and see to it that it is patronized in a liberal manner by rich and poor alike, and if the storekeeper be but the right sort of a merchant, and one disposed to build up a large trade by small profit inducements, you will soon discover that the town center has changed its base, and that the threshold of the Department Store is now the hub from which all people radiate. ”

“ Most people think that the department store is a product of the big city, but I think it is a development of the general store of the country town. We found a place where they sold everything from handkerchiefs to plows, and wandered about happily, looking at farm implements whose use we did not even guess, and wonderful displays of crockery and printed calico. We seemed to create quite a sensation when we came in although there were other people in the store. The proprietor came forward hurriedly and asked us what we wanted. ”

“ She was beginning to tremble a little for fear the woman would not try her.
"Oh, I guess you'll do if you are not too stuck up," said the buyer carelessly. "Girls who have never worked in a store always think they know it all, and that sort of thing doesn't go, not in my department!"
She led Faith up to one of the gates at the ribbon counter and showed her how to crawl up to the packer's desk above the shelves, where the stock was kept. ”

“ Why will no department store never make this easier? I've recommended it till I'm black in the face, and that's all the good it does.
In the same way I've hammered at the ventilation of our store. Nowadays, when there's such a fad for hygiene, when even handkerchiefs come in antiseptic packages, you'd think that a big firm would see to it that a place crowded with people all day would have an ample supply of fresh air. They advertise all sorts of sanitary devices and preparations, and yet the atmosphere their customers and employees have to breathe is abominable sometimes. ”

“ There's one part of a modern department store that's pretty hard to criticize, and that's the advertising department. Usually the head is a high-priced expert and knows his business thoroughly. It's a modern science; they have plenty of money to spend, because they can show results. ”

“ I'm glad of a chance to get into a department store! I love their cheerful atmosphere and waves of warm air!”
“I know you hate it, but you’re a dear duck of a man to go so good-naturedly. Run along now, and don’t dawdle.” ”

“ But I fail to see the connection between pharmacy and magazines, or stationery or candy. By selling these the druggist puts himself at once into competition with the department stores. There can be no doubt about who will win out [pg 238] in any such competition as that. But I believe there is still a place in the community for any special line of business if its proprietor sticks to his specialty and makes himself a recognized expert in it. The department store spreads itself too thin—there is no room for intensive development at any point of its vast expanse. ”

“ Watchmen should report at the store each night, and as soon as the store is closed examine the leaving register, to see that each department has signed for everything having been left in perfect order. ”

“ Moreover, why could not one great business be conducted more cheaply, and so undersell, the small ones, since a single executive staff would do for it, rent, delivery cost, and a hundred other fixed charges would be reduced, to say nothing of the advantages of large buying, and the advertising which every department would get from all the rest? The idea grew into a carefully-formulated plan, and 1876 saw the start of the great Wanamaker department store, perhaps the most famous retail business in the world. ”

“ On this particular day we happened to find ourselves in the drapery department of a large department store both waiting for the elevator to take us to the street.
"Oh, how do you do?" she said to me loftily. "Gorgeous day, isn't it?" ”

“ A large clothing firm or department store estimates that it will need a certain number of ready-made garments for its spring or fall trade. It may have them made in inside or in outside shops. An inside shop is a room in a part of the store belonging to the firm, or is a separate building elsewhere in the city under the direct management of a superintendent appointed by the firm. ”

“ I have eyes like a hawk and a nose like a hound and ears like a small boy under the sofa when a young man's calling on Big Sister. In ten minutes I have spotted the dust in the corner of the aisle, a girl who wears brass bracelets, a porter who is not attending to his duty, a badly arranged counter, an error in spelling on a placard, two store detectives loafing on their job, and a hideous combination of colors in the front window. ”

“ But, sooner or later, he'll have to go: he's out of place in a down-to-date department store. Another man, an aisle man, whom I have caught repeatedly flirting with his prettiest sales-girls, evidently has his suspicions. Whenever I draw near nowadays he slips round a corner and is always writing desperately in a little book. You'd perhaps think that they try to placate me if they suspect that I'm the store critic, but no! ”

“ The large department store, while it affords training and opportunity to the girl who intends to become a competent saleswoman, employs many girls and women in occupations other than salesmanship. In the store there is a large clerical staff, including stenographers, who may receive promotion to the position of private secretaries and bookkeepers. Telephone and telegraph operators are among the employees. The store shoppers act in connection with mail orders and orders received by telephone. The advertising department employs writers, artists, proof-readers, and card and sign writers. ”

“ Most of the great wholesale and retail houses, banks, theaters, hotels, and public buildings are crowded into this area, and here is the largest department store in the world, in which over 9000 people work. ”

“ Her principal work is to trot around in other stores and learn all she can about their 'specials' and prices, and get all the information possible in order to keep her employers posted on what their rivals are doing, and besides that she is expected to prowl around this store at irregular intervals, and we are not supposed to know that she isn't a legitimate customer. ”

“ They have all to compete with the department stores, but their customers realize that they have something to offer that can be offered by no department store—expert service in one line, due to some one’s life-long training, experience and devotion to the public. ”

“ Sweeping should be avoided as much as possible during the day, but the departments at all times must be neat and clean in appearance. They should not allow cash boys or parcel boys to loiter in their division, and should see that all customers are properly served, and [Pg 41] the greatest courtesy and politeness shown them, whether buying or simply looking at goods. Strangers from out of town visiting the store should be made to feel at home, and particular attention paid them. ”

“ At the beginning we can make assertion that in the entire history of retail selling no more ingenious scheme has been devised for the orderly and rapid movement of goods in and out of a department-store. ”

“ The “Salvation Army Department Store,” a sort of a systematized and orderly looking junk shop, contains and displays everything to fit out men and women from head to foot. The things are scrupulously clean, but sold at far higher prices than in the shops of our friends on Baxter Street.
The buyers who come here are mostly people recently picked up by the Salvation Army and employed in some of their shops. They are not treated with the courtesy due to a customer, but with the brutality of a charity worker. ”

“ American Storekeeper Never in the history of the mercantile world has anything created so radical a change in the methods of storekeeping as that of the Department Store System of the present day. The "Department Store" is the outgrowth of the cheap counter business originated by Butler Brothers in Boston about ten years ago. The little "Five Cent Counter" then became a cornerstone from which the largest of all the world's branches of merchandising was to be reared. It was the "Cheap Counter" which proved to the progressive merchant his ability to sell all lines of wares under one roof. ”

“ Take one of those elevators up," Jennie would have ridden up to the fourth floor, and stupidly gazed at pink silk and val lace negligees in glass cases.
Tell me, have you ever visited the grocery department of a great store on the wrong side of State Street? It's a mouth-watering experience. A department store grocery is a glorified mixture of delicatessen shop, meat market, and vaudeville. ”

“ Not until the development of the department store were women able to observe at close range the conduct of modern business. Not unnaturally it was in the department store that they began one of the most ambitious of their present-day activities,—that of humanizing industry. ”

“ Faith had heard both remarks, and so had the old lady, who was still standing beside Miss Jennings behind the ribbon counter.
"Is that true? Is the store such a fire-trap?" asked the old lady quickly. "Dear, dear, what a place to cage a lot of human beings!"
"The fire department has ordered the boss to put in more apparatus a dozen times that I know of," answered Miss Jennings, promptly, "but the building is insured and so is the stock. What do they care about us! We must take our chances!" ”