The Decline & Rise Of The Department Store

Grant McCracken writes a lengthy piece that looks at how in the past the rise in branding helped speciality stores compete against department stores – but now the ability to change quickly and adapt to trends has helped an upswing in the popularity of the department store.

We can chart the decline of the department store against the rise of the national brand. As branding got better, and marketers became more skilled, the department store became more punishing. It was so uninviting, so unorganized, and so aesthetically unforgiving, even the best brands began to wilt.

A response was inevitable. Ralph Lauren said, “leave this to us,” and build little boutiques into the department store. These boutiques out-earned the rest of the floor because they continued to build the brand. Mr. Lauren’s store was a bastion of privilege in what was otherwise biggish, boxish and artless. I heard, but never confirmed, that Mr. Lauren had a full time staff member to search out those “rowing team” photos that gave the store it’s preppy feel. The boutique could do meaning management that the department store hadn’t known since in it’s golden palace hey day.

… It turns out that the department store is now able to manage meanings in a way that boutiques and specialty stores cannot. The specialty store could go deep. It could cultivate the brand carefully and well. But in a hyperactive marketplace, where consumer taste change often and shifts suddenly, the real challenge is remains current. And it is easy to do this with many brands supplied by other players than one perfectly managed brand of one’s own. Retail, a river runs through it! This is it’s adaptive advantage. Potentially, the department store can be a complex adaptive system.

This Blog Sits at the: Department stores on the upswing: two approaches to change management and brand architecture