Boston Store liquidation sale attracts shoppers

The latest, and last, window display at downtown Milwaukee’s Boston Store also is the least attractive.

No more carefully posed mannequins draped with the latest fashions.

Friday morning the windows and the inside of the more-than-century-old department store were hung with arresting posters in blazing colors and marked by foot-high, all-capital lettering:

“EVERYTHING MUST GO!” “NOTHING HELD BACK!” “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.”

The liquidators who bought the assets of bankrupt Bon-Ton Stores Inc. wasted no time. Less than 48 hours after a federal judge in Delaware approved the purchase, the new owners of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cosmetics, furniture, perfume and cologne, men’s suits, women’s shoes and children’s pajamas were ready to mount the going-out-of-business sale.

Following the typical rhythm of such events, the initial discounts are a modest 10 percent to 30 percent.

“I thought their sale prices would be more,” one woman said. “But I guess they’re just starting.”

Those who made it to the second floor could see, at the back of the store, orange lockers where shoppers can pick up purchases from Amazon — the online retailing giant that is contributing to the demise of traditional merchants such as Boston Store.

“It’s really unfortunate that retail in general is struggling as it is,” downtown bank employee Sue Goman said as she left Boston Store after checking out the sale and buying a pair of boots. “But I do a lot of shopping online too. I contribute to that problem.”

Goman, 61, of Milwaukee, got a good deal on the boots — 30 percent off an already-marked-down price. And she had been thinking about buying them for a while anyway.

But other shoppers, like Carmen Davila, a 20-year Boston Store shopper who typically works the clearance racks, were essentially on scouting expeditions Friday and were unimpressed by the advertised discounts.

“If they really wanted to go out of business, everything probably would be 50, 75 percent off, not 10 to 30 percent,” said Davila, 45, of Milwaukee. “There’s always a gimmick.”

Still, she figured she’d probably buy something Friday, and planned to return when when the price-cutting gets more serious.

Not Goman, though. Milwaukee will miss Boston Store, she said, and so will she. Goman isn’t inclined to buy things just because the price is low, and watching the longtime local institution fold is a bit disheartening.

“I don’t really need anything,” she said, “and it is kind of sad.”