Giant Stores and Businesses
We didn't always have giant chains of nearly identical stores all across the country, threatening to spread around the world. They are a recent phenomenon, begun by men not long departed. Names like Woolworth, Macy, Kresge, Walton, Penney, Sears, Ward and Price stand out, though you may not recognize some of them.
I don't know which was the original department store, the store that carried many kinds of merchandise with departments for clothing (mens, womens, childrens), hardware and so on. The first such stores, when new, were expected to fail. When they didn't, they were quickly imitated and the idea spread rapidly. Pioneering stores began to publish catalogs so that those who couldn't visit the store could still purchase from their standardized selection of merchandise.
I remember, as a very young kid, being taken to the lunch counter of Woolworth's for a hot turkey sandwich or a hot fudge sundae and being left there while my mother shopped. There were other "Five and Dime" stores, but that was the name I remembered. As a family, we did a lot of our shopping in Sears or Montgomery Wards and, later, J. C. Penney. Those stores were anywhere you went, mostly in the downtown area of any town or big city.
Then something new popped up: malls. These were places away from the hearts of cities where you could easily find parking, free, for shopping at a concentration of stores and food establishments (they weren't always restaurants any more). About 1954, the first Kresge's found its way into our area, soon changing its name to the name it uses now: K-Mart. It seemed to combine the cheapness of the five-and-dime with the convenience of the true department store. A few years later, the Walton family brought its larger, grander version into the area: WalMart.
The Price family introduced the membership club store. There were a few membership stores based on service criteria, such as Fed-Mart (owned by a German consortium that paniced and shut them all down) and FedCo (which seemed to simply give up after years of mismanagement), but the Price stores were based on providing goods and services for those who operated businesses of their own. They merged into the present CostCo stores and now compete with the Walton families Sam's Club stores.
The Walton family became one of the richest in the world. Will they go on to rule the world? Probably not. Their time, like that of the Microsoft Corporation, may have already reached its peak. They may be in decline. There are too many hungry new businesses out there, trying to come up with the next formula for business success. Whatever that may be, it will probably be different from any business plan we've seen before.
It looked for a while as if the business of the future might be based on the Internet. The Internet seems to favor small, specialized businesses over generalized giants such as have ruled what is called the brick-and-morter realm. And to build a thriving Internet business almost requires having a thriving business off of the Internet to begin with. No, the business plan of the future will probably be something else.
I have no idea what it might be.
Comments (3)
It's interesting how so many things seem to be cyclical. Yes, the web appears to favor the smaller, specialized businesses. As web services continue to grow, though, we may see the same thing happening on the internet as did in real-life retail.
How do you account for the success of Amazon.com? As far as I know there was no amazon real-life business before the internet...one of the problems with the chain department stores is that personalized service can be sacrificed when mass marketing is considered more important than the individual customer.~~~You're forgiven! I'm glad you don't follow directions very well...I learned more about you that way...and btw, what is a mattox? ~Spot~
I was very sad when I went to London and found the Gap and many other American chains there. It is sad to see the same stores everywhere. It is convenient because you can buy something in one city and return it in another and you know what type of merchandise to expect in those stores, but it steals the individuality of the area.