ShelbyGerken

“Closed for business.” Department stores across America are boarded up and shut down. No more are the days of being for hours on end. dragged by your mother through multi-level stores with window displays. People are now trading in the aesthetic of traditional shopping with baskets for the convenience of online carts on a website. 

From Sears and JCPenney to higher-end department stores such as Barneys and Neiman Marcus, and every store in between, department stores have gone bankrupt and there is no sign of the trend ending.  

These closings are the result of many factors and problems. According to Vox.com, the problem started in December of 2007 when the Great Recession began. The strain on the economy as a whole led to a decrease in average household income, limiting extra expenses. 

Americans, instead of returning to their beloved department stores, had to turn to cheaper alternatives. Deal hunting took the joy out of the experience of leisure shopping in department stores. 

Additionally, department stores can no longer keep up with the speed of today’s competitive market and increased demand of consumers, including the pressure  businesses face trying to keep up with constantly changing current trends. 

At one point in time, department stores were the capital of new trends. Department store display windows were where one could find the latest fashions. However, with the development of technology and with businesses now focusing on marketing and website design, department stores aren’t able to compete and appeal to younger generations the same way a business can on social media. 

When asked by The Network, 59.4% of the students said they prefer to do their shopping both online and in store, 14.8% of the students said they would rather shop exclusively online and 25.8% prefer to shop in store. 

Younger generations of today aren’t missing the ambiance of department stores at all. They never experienced it the way older generations have.

“For us it was Richman Gordman,” paraprofessional Mrs. Katie Herek said. “I loved Richman Gordman as a kid, partly because it had a playland in the middle of it with the big elephant slide, and now they’re at the Omaha Children’s Museum.” 

Paraprofessional Mrs. Angela Miller says, “I don’t want to be an online shopper, I like to go in person and you can touch things, try it on and talk to people you run into. Half the time, I order stuff online and it’s the wrong size, wrong material or doesn’t fit very well.”

“It’s a hassle to get it re-mailed if it doesn’t work out, I’d much rather try [clothes] on there at the store and if it works, [I’ll buy] it and go,” Herek agrees. 

Freshman Molly Robb agrees. 

“[I prefer to shop] in store, because you can see things in person, and online is so much worse for sizing. I think there is a reason for [department stores] closing down, because people are just online now. But I think it would be cool if there was a lot more in store [shopping]. Westroads is still pretty popular but it would be cool if Oakview was [popular again].” 

Many agree, however, that the cherry on top of department store shutdowns was the effects from the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. According to the National Library of Medicine, during the pandemic, businesses had to adapt to the new in-person restrictions which led to a strain on their resources when they were already running short due to a lack of business. 

With most of the world shut in their homes and afraid to leave, to fulfill the need of consumerism, online shopping took off like never before. According to the Census Bureau’s Annual Retail Trade Survey, “e-commerce sales increased by $244.2 billion or 43% in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, rising from $571.2 billion in 2019 to $815.4 billion in 2020.” 

Online shopping may have solved our temporary problems, but has it created more problems now for the future? The boom in online shopping has increased the demand for new products produced at unprecedented rates. 

Information from the Public Interest Network says that clothing companies are producing excess products to keep up with the growing demand for trending clothes. Since trends change daily, 30% of all clothes produced around the globe are never sold. All these clothes go to landfills that are overflowing and infect the surrounding environment with micro-plastics and dyes from the garments. 

So the next time consumers feel the urge to spend excessively online just for the sheer convenience of it, they should take the time to consider, “if I saw that in a department store display window, would I still buy it?” Consumers should work to undo the shopping habits created by the economy. If not for the sake of saving beloved department stores, do it for the sake of our beloved planet.