LIGHT DIMS FOR ICONS
For more than a century, department stores have been all the rage. Now, the likes of Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue are facing an unprecedented assault from online shopping
Walking through the Bloomingdale’s cosmetics department on 59th Street in New York, you wouldn’t guess that department stores around the world are having a rough time. Even in SA, 159-year-old department store Stuttafords is winding up (see Cover Story June 15-June 21).
But Bloomingdale’s is buzzing. Women stop to look at cosmetics. Some are having makeovers. There are women looking at handbags in adjacent departments and shoppers trying on pieces in the jewellery section.
It’s much the same at Macy’s flagship department store on 34th Street, and at Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue.
But there is something that nags at you: many of those women are particularly wellgroomed and not particularly young. And though many are browsing, they aren’t lining up at the tills or leaving with many bags.
And that’s the thing. Younger shoppers have different habits. Millennials want more interaction. Stand-alone beauty brands in the US like Ulta Beauty are taking market share from cosmetics counters in big department stores. There, shoppers get to try things at their own pace, without saleswomen acting as gatekeepers between the product and the shopper. As Fortune magazine says of Ulta Beauty, it’s “one of the hottest stories in retail”.
Department stores are trying to keep people (mainly women) in love with shopping at bricks-and-mortar stores, and not just looking online. But it doesn’t seem to be working. Over the festive season, US shoppers spent a record Us$91.7bn online, up 11% on 2015. Sales in department stores declined.
So, despite their busy stores, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus reported soft numbers. Macy’s is closing 68 stores, and Sears and Kmart have closed 150 stores.
In contrast, discount, value and speciality shops continue to attract shoppers. Pop into Uniqlo, Zara or H&M in New York, near the