|
A department store is a retail establishment which specializes in selling a wide range of products without a single predominant merchandise line. Department stores usually sell products including
apparel, furniture,
appliances, and additionally select other lines of products such as paint, hardware, toiletries, cosmetics, photographic equipment, jewelry, toys, and sporting goods. Certain department stores are further classified as discount department
stores. Discount department stores commonly have central customer checkout areas, generally in the front area of the store. Examples of discount retail chain stores include Wal-Mart
and
Target, which both opened their first locations in 1962.
Hudson's Bay Company
in Canada was the first store to include departments; however, by modern standards, it would not be considered a department store because of the size and range of items that were stocked. The same may be said about
Gostiny Dvor in St Petersburg, which opened in 1785 and should probably be regarded as one of the first purposely-built shopping malls in the world, as it consisted of more than 100 shops covering
an area of over 53,000 m².
The first true department store was founded by Aristide Boucicaut
in Paris. He founded Bon Marché
in 1838, and by 1852 it offered a wide variety of goods in "departments" inside one building. Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees allowing exchanges and refunds.
An online shop, Internet shop, webshop or online store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall. Online shopping is popular mainly because of its speed and ease of
use. In 1995 Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com
and
Dell
and Cisco began to aggressively
use Internet for commercial transactions. The rest is history.
Excerpts provided by:
Department Store
Online Shop
Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Date of last revision: 16 July 2006 06:03 UTC
GretschCo has
many different
department stores
to appeal to each
of you. Please
feel free to
browse one or
many. Many
have comparison
shopping to make
finding what you
want at the best
price easier. |
