Legacy retailers

While shopping malls and online retail have been expanding, some old retailers have a reputation which make them a destination in their own right. This article includes department stores and shopping arcades with a legacy beyond the usual.

These might have a department for food and drinks. See legacy food markets for bazaars, market halls, fishmarkets and other retailers with food as their primary product range.

Understand
Department stores became common with the Industrial Revolution and steam power. Many of them are located in a 19th-century neighborhood with a rail station and a grand old hotel.

Department stores are large shops selling a wide variety of goods, arranged in "departments" selling a particular type of good. For example men's and children's clothes may be separate departments. It is traditional to pay for goods in one department before moving to the next, but computerised till systems often allow paying elsewhere. Traditional department stores usually are spread over several floors of a large building, and many have a grand hall at the centre. Department stores usually sell clothing, accessories, perfumes and beauty products and a wide range of other products which may include food, luggage, crockery, homewares, furniture, curtains and garden supplies. Stand-alone department stores started going out of fashion in the 1970s because of suburbanisation and the rise of the shopping centre, and it is nowadays more common for a department store to be housed within a shopping centre as the anchor tenant. The department store has continued to decline in the 21st century as some people prefer to do their shopping online. Nevertheless, some historic department stores continue to operate in major cities around the world, and are often tourist attractions.

A shopping arcade contains multiple stores, in a manner similar to a modern shopping mall, but with more elaborate architecture.

Window displays


Some department stores put considerable effort into styling displays in external windows facing main streets. This can reach a climax in December when a Christmas window display is put on, in some cases using all the main windows to illustrate a children's story.

Personal shoppers
Some department stores offer a personal shopper experience. You book an appointment where a member of staff will select a small set of goods (usually clothes) and bring them to a private room for you to choose which to buy. There is often an expectation that you will spend "big" and buy one or more complete outfits, but this can save time if you have a tight schedule.

Brand counters
In some department stores, you may encounter counters for specific brands, make-up and beauty counters being a prominent example of this model. Check prices however, as you may be a paying a premium for buying on brand.

Canada
The Hudson's Bay Company was founded in 1670 as a fur-trading company with a huge land concession from the British crown; in 1870 the land was turned over to the Canadian government. Today "The Bay" is mainly a department store chain, with stores in most Canadian cities and a few in the US. Items that recall the fur trade days, like parkas or their brightly-striped blankets, are popular with foreign visitors as distinctly Canadian souvenirs.