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2018-12-11
Department stores have had a rocky 2018.
Sears, Kmart, JCPenney, and Lord & Taylor have all closed stores this year.
There are a few reasons department stores had such a difficult year. The rise of e-commerce has created a major obstacle for department stores, many of which have been around for more than 100 years. Stores are being forced to face up against giants like Amazon and Walmart, and many are coming up short in their e-commerce offerings.
As a result of more shoppers turning to online stores, there's also been a decline in foot traffic to malls. Many mall-based department stores have been hit hard from the decrease in shoppers.
A disappearing middle class has also taken a toll on many mid-tier department stores. Shoppers are either looking for luxury products or looking for off-price, budget options. As a result, department stores that don't fall into either of these categories are struggling to win over shoppers.
We visited many major department stores in 2018, including Sears, JCPenney, Lord & Taylor, and Macy's. Here's which store was in the best shape:
Kmart and Sears had a particularly difficult 2018. In October, the stores' parent company Sears Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
We visited multiple Kmart and Sears stores throughout New York City this year. We visited some locations more than once. The stores were consistently messy.
The store we visited was in particularly bad shape because it was so near closing ...
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
... but parent company Hudson's Bay, which also owns Saks Fifth Avenue, said it expects to close up to 10 of its nearly 50 Lord & Taylor locations through 2019.
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
Nordstrom is doing better than its fellow department stores, reporting comparable sales were up 2.3% in the third quarter.
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
The store we visited in Westchester, New York, was in better shape than many of the other stores we visited. It was clean, well-organized, and had more shoppers than we saw at other stores.
But Macy's was the best department store we visited in 2018.
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
When we visited the store's New York flagship on 34th Street, it was busy with shoppers, had a ton to offer, and was spotlessly clean.
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
Though the brand started the year off by closing stores, it was able to start turning things around. Macy's reported comparable sales were up 3.1% in the third quarter, marking its fourth consecutive quarter of growth.
Macy's has been making some major changes to help it turn things around, especially when it comes to e-commerce.
Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
The department store chain has been improving its mobile shopping platform, rolling out services such as mobile checkout, and even looking to bring augmented reality to its app to enable customers to virtually try on beauty products at home. Macy's is also testing pickup lockers similar to Amazon's in an expansion of its buy online, pickup in-store program.
In addition, it is shrinking its less-productive stores to help boost sales. The idea is that by having less merchandise to wade through, the smaller stores will have a more desirable shopping experience.
Jessica Tyler is a Visual Features Reporter at Business Insider. She joined BI from the music publication Mind Equals Blown, where she is a contributing photographer and writer covering music and pop culture. Before this, she interned in the Creative Services department at CBS2/WLNY-TV. She holds a BA in Photography/Digital Art from SUNY Oneonta.
