Marks & Spencer Bekonscot by Michael Maggs from WikiCommons
On September 28th, 1894, Michael Marks and Tom Spencer open their Penny Bazaar at Leeds Kirkgate Market. The company traces its roots even farther back to 1884 when Michael Marks opened his first stall in Leeds with the slogan “Don’t ask the price, it’s a penny.”
On September 15th, 1924, Horace Saks and Bernard Gimble open Saks 5th Avenue next to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
On Sept 10th, 1907, the Nieman-Marcus Department Store opens in Dallas Texas.
The opening was a bit of a talent train on competing department stores in Dallas. Herman Marcus left his job as buyer at Sanger Brothers joining his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband A.L. Neiman, former employees of A Harris and Co., to open a luxury department store catering to the tastes of oil-rich Texans.
Neiman Marcus enjoyed instant success. Their initial inventory, purchased by Carrie on a single trip to New York City, completely sold out in a few weeks. It appeared that the recently rich Texans were starving for goods not normally available in Dallas.
In 1914, a fire destroyed the store and all of its inventory. 17 days later, a temporary store was open and by years end, Neiman Marcus opened a new flagship store. In 1927, Neiman Marcus premiered the first weekly fashion show in the US. The store continues to operate under its original name and is still headquartered in Dallas.
Using money that he had received as an inheritance and savings from his job as a tutor, Irishman Alexander Turney Stewart opened a small shop selling Irish fabrics and lace along with domestic calico at 823 Broadway in New York. The date was September 1st, 1823. From this humble start, Stewart was to build a commercial empire and amass a fortune equivalent to $90 billion in today’s dollars.
With early success in his first shop, Stewart built a larger building across the street in 1846. The building eventually became known as the Marble Palace due to its unique Tuckahoe Marble facade. To keep up with business, the building was expanded in 1851, 1852 and 1871. This was the birth of the modern department store.
On August 18th, 1872, a traveling dry goods salesman named Aaron Montgomery Ward founds his retail company with its first catalog. Not much of an actual catalog, the first issue was a single sheet, 8×12 inches, that listed 163 items available for purchase and ordering instructions. This first catalog was a feat in and of itself since Wars and his partners had lost their first inventory in the Great Chicago Fire of October, 1871.
IBM introduced the 5150 Personal Computer on August 12th, 1981. They sell 136,000 in the first year.
IBM along with Apple were beginning to change the way people thought about computers in the home and they help create the home computer retail business and set the stage for the internet. The internet enabled the Dotcom retail boom.
Mall of America Sign from WikiCommons
The work of Joe Chill 2
August 11th, 1992, the Mall of America (MOA) opens in Bloomington, MN.
At the time of its opening, MOA was the largest shopping mall in the United States with over 2.5 million square feet of leasable retail space inside a building of 5.4 million square feet. Over 520 stores operate in the mall and there is space for over 12,000 cars in the parking structures. 11,000 year round employees work in the mall with another 2000 during the Holidays. MOA generates about $2 billion dollars in economic activity.
Along with the stores, there is the Nickelodeon Universe indoor theme park, the SeaLife Minnesota Aquarium, 24 restaurants, a Mirror Maze, a wedding chapel (that has performed over 7500 weddings), 342 room Marriott Hotel, 500 room Radisson Hotel, a comedy club, Minnesota Children’s Museum and a 14 theater multiplex.
On July 20, 1915, the United States Steel Company opened the Lake View store in Morgan Park, MN.
The Lake View store with its indoor corridors and multiple stores was one of the first indoor shopping malls in the United States. Minnesota would later build the Southdale Center, the first post-war enclosed shopping mall and the Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the United States and the most visited mall in the world. (Full disclosure: I may be biased having been born and raised in Minnesota.)
On July 16th, 1995, Amazon.com opens for business when they sold and shipped a copy of Douglas Hofstadter’s book, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Last year and only 20 years after beginning operations, Amazon’s revenue was $107 billion.
FAO Schwarz by A Marga from WikiCommons
It was a dark day for children young and old on July 15th, 2015 when FAO Schwarz closed the doors and turned off the lights at its 5th Avenue store in Manhattan.
Founded in 1862 and moving to New York in 1870, FAO Schwarz was the oldest toy store in the U.S. known for their unique often high-end toys.
The Observant Customer 