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How boutique retailers won by discarding the department store playbook

Inside Retail

While household-name department stores are downsizing and closing their doors, multi-brand retail boutiques are succeeding by focusing on personalised shopping experiences. Of course, e-commerce has a crucial part to any brand, but in-store retail shopping gives you a sensory experience that online can’t.

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Japan’s department stores: What’s left when the tourism tide goes out?

Inside Retail

Japan’s storied department stores are riding a wave of overseas tourists, and although there is no sign yet of a wipeout, the cautious pronouncements of company executives indicate that it’s a wave they can’t ride on indefinitely. On the surface of it, department stores still have their mojo: sales in October rose by 5.3

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The Department Store dilemma

Retail Focus

Unfortunately for many department stores, the pandemic has been a final blow in the battle with online retail, spiralling real estate costs and difficulty serving up physical retail that is consistently experiential, engaging and adaptable. So, what is to become of these extinct department stores?

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Amazon to test department stores in offline expansion

Inside Retail

Amazon.com is to open several department stores in its home US market to test the concept as it continues to build out its multichannel business model. Department stores’ share of the overall US market has fallen from 14.5 It is also testing automated, cashier-less convenience stores in several markets.

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After the golden age: Why department stores are no longer glamorous

Inside Retail

When Laura Peden was growing up in the 1970s, department stores were a special place. Decades later, she still vividly remembers how she and her grandmother would travel into Myer’s city store at Christmas to see the “insanely fascinating” windows. The department store was no longer the star attraction.

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“Not surprised”: Experts react to Amazon’s reported department store plan

Inside Retail

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that online retail giant Amazon is looking to open large bricks-and-mortar stores in the US to sell clothing, homewares, electronics and other products, much like a department store. And it would come at a time when some long-running department stores are closing up shop.

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Analysis: How Australian department stores can thrive in a post-Covid world

Inside Retail

Those brands that have avoided bankruptcy have often been forced to undertake aggressive cost reduction and store closures. Department stores have been particularly impacted, with consumers forced online during the pandemic now choosing to buy direct from brands or from more price-competitive online marketplaces.