The economics of running a department store - The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) Discussion

[–] rooster_davis 15 years ago

I think back then they were not so stressed to pay high costs for taxes and benefits. (Of course things like medical care were not devastatingly expensive then either.) My grandfather worked at Sears most of his adult life, part of it as a clerk on the floor and was able to support a wife (who did not work outside the home) and two children on the income. When people talk about the good old days, sometimes they have a point.

Now you go to the grocery store and you're lucky if they don't expect you to ring out your own groceries.

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[–] alan-plessinger-1 15 years ago

I actually do ring up my own groceries, and I like it because it's much faster. Let's remember that this is a big city department store, not a suburban mall. Also, there's not as much mechanization, so more staff is needed to keep track of inventory, what has been sold, what needs to be stocked and reordered, etc.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] beecee101 14 years ago

I agree with taxes/ issues that allowed more employees per customer. Much better service. Of course the whole movie was about being underpaid and unionized...uggh

What the heck was going on at that New York beach and pool? I can't believe they paid for that torture and thought it was a treat!

Im 37 and thought it 3rd world. Im from a small town maybe don't understand. Ive seen it 3 times had to comment.

bc

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[–] dailyshampoo48 11 years ago

I agree with taxes/ issues that allowed more employees per customer.

It's not taxes, it's the corporations. Companies are making plenty of money, they just choose not to hire. Looking at the charts, the cost of labor is cheaper than it has been for a long time, especially when we consider productivity per dollar paid.

There's been research done to show that automation (security cameras, anti-theft devices) is actually more expensive than actually hiring someone to do the job instead. Chomsky believes that this is a conspiracy to undermine the unions -- class warfare.

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[–] mathmaniac 8 years ago

I had a relative who worked at Sears! He earned a decent living and even saved quite a bit of money.
Growing up, a trip to Sears was almost a weekly thing. There was a large Sears catalog that we kids perused when we were making our Christmas list for Santa. Dad bought his tires at Sears. If you were buying clothes, a salesperson helped you when you went to try on several dresses, made sure you had everything you wanted, and took the clothes away so they could be hung again on the racks.
Now, if you try on clothing, you are on your own. One salesperson MAY be around to make sure you don't steal clothing.
Big change in attitude toward the customer.
One thing my sibling and I looked forward to was being left (!) at a display of live monkeys - imagine that - while our parents shopped on a different floor. Today, it would be unconscionable to leave two children alone in a department store. It would be animal cruelty to have an entertainment of live animals amidst what I vaguely remember as the shoe department...
Today, it's not wise to send large heavy catalogs to customers. Most things can be bought online. Stores that have brick and mortar are still trying to nudge people to buy online - I'm thinking of Staples and Walmart, for example. In my childhood days, a trip to the department store was a real excursion. If they didn't have it, you didn't need it...

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[–] jackgriffin1-1 15 years ago

When I was a kid we had stores like Strawbridge and Clothier, Gimbels, and Wanamakers. They all had 10 or 11 floors. And they had hundreds of employees.

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[–] giverny98 15 years ago

Aww ... I loved Strawbridges. The had the best biannual sales ever.

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[–] queueu 14 years ago

Competition, my friend...Competition.

Peace In, Chill Out, Carry On...

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[–] Blondfashionisto 14 years ago

From the many classic movies I've seen, everything was pretty much done manually (i.e. Elevator Operators, Stock Clerks, etc.). I'm sure the wages were no more than they are for retail workers today (who don't usually receive benefits) but customers expected a much higher service standard.

It's true - Today, we've had customer service chipped away. I get very irritated when expected to ring through my own purchase (Canadian Tire and Ikea have started that). Not only is that taking away a job but the STORE should be providing me with service. OR then give me a DISCOUNT for having to ring through my own purchase.

In today's society, we've just come to expect poor service - Of course, for those that have lots of money, that doesn't apply...i.e. 'high end' retail or other businesses (salons, hotels, etc.).

'There’s a name for you ladies, but it’s not used - Outside a kennel! (Crystal Allen in The Women)'

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[–] archaeofan 14 years ago

Personally, I prefer to check myself out at grocery stores. I can determine the order of ringing things up which helps with my records later on (food vs toiletries vs cleaning products, etc) and I find that I pay more attention to the prices and catch pricing errors (price rung not matching the shelf price) on occasion. At Giant Eagle they always have an employee there to bag things up which is helpful and shows that a job need not be lost to provide this service to customers.

One big change today compared with the past is that everything is returnable with no explanation required. That is a big benefit to the consumer, but it adds huge costs to the store which then gets passed on the the customers as well as the employees. Many return items that have nothing wrong with them cannot be placed back on the shelves (at least not for full price) and so are a loss. Many people take advantage by purchasing items, using them and then returning them to get their money back. Such behavior affects the entire retail system.

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[–] mgdarch 14 years ago

It’s interesting to note that department stores were impacted largely because of a somewhat rapacious need by company stockholders (and their Boards) to continually return short-term profits on their investment shares. This activity was largely practiced in the late 80’s and 90’s when department stores were being bought out by larger and larger corporations in order to show profits on “paper.” Eventually, around 2005, with the super merger between the last two surviving giants, May Company and Federated, all the former great department stores of yesteryear had either been eaten up or sold off during anti-trust settlements. What people didn’t realize then was that while all this was happening, artificially increased values on the books in the short run had distinct long term consequences. Primarily, the costs of debt service for these enormous acquisitions and employee attrition rate.

Corporate motivation was forced to address the enormous debt by continually buying other stores in order to become bigger and bigger. Hence, actual store employees became fewer and fewer and service became less and less. Value became non-existent. All this kind of activity essentially resulted in a wipeout of the competitive field and the general competition. Today, a single remaining department store (Macy's-May Co.) is generally owned by one large conglomerate. What happened? The free market successfully fed on itself. Companies got larger and larger and deregulation on Wall Street led the way.

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[–] bravo78 14 years ago

I like your argument except for the "wipeout of the competitive field and the general competition". I may be misunderstanding this point, but I would like to think companies like Costco, Walmart, and Target were not only realizing the self-destruction of these traditional department stores but aggressively stepping in to fill this retail void. After all the ascendency of Walmart (and others) coincides with the merger madness of these department stores, and though Walmart grew in many cases on its own merit, it was helped along by its competition bloating itself with debt.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] CindyH 14 years ago

Remember that it took many more people to do the work then, than it does today. There were no computers so everything had to be done by hand such as payroll, price sheets, orders, price tags and you name it. There were no video cameras, so there was more security. There were hat check girls, there were bathroom attendants (which you still get in swank stores), there were no buffing machines (well they existed, but were luxury items that businesses didn't usually use), so waxing the floor took hours. I could go on, but you see where I'm going.

It's no surprise then that items (such as clothing) were actually much more expensive then, than they are today as well. They were also much better made. You could buy a pair of shoes and your feet would wear out before those shoes did!

Still though, 400 is an awful lot of names! I think they blew that number a bit out of proportion to make a point in the film. Although, they did have an employee kitchen and I'm sure that the truck drivers and loading dock folks were included in that number as well. In any case, it's hard to tell.

I can see several hundred, but I'm not certain about 400.

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[–] bravo78 14 years ago

The Winnipeg Eaton's store (once THE department store in Canada) apparently had a staff in the thousands at its peak so I can see a store having 400 employees. And you're right, the large staff was likely on account that many jobs were considerably more labour intensive.

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[–] jmastropolo 8 years ago

If I remember the numbers, only 400 signed the petition out of 2500 employees; that why Joe (Robert Cummings) was so depressed at the beach. So if you think 400 was too many, how about 2500?

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[–] greenfuzz-1 13 years ago

What you are missing is that this is a fictional movie, not a documentary - this a stylized depiction of a department store. It's really not intended to make you think about their ability to afford all those employees - that is completely beside the point of the movie.

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[–] mgdarch 11 years ago

It may not be the point, but it's certainly a situation where one can argue where art imitates life or perhaps vice versa. And I also suspect that when other bargain big box stores were coming into ascendency (WalMart, CostCo, Target etc.) that the traditional department store was on the decline. Why? Perhaps this was an economic reality of providing goods at increasingly lower and lower prices in order to gain a competitive advantage. But...excuse the pun...at what cost? No one would say that Bergdorf Goodman's is on the same competitive playing field as WalMart or that Wanamaker's Department Store was the same as Target's? These former department stores were about service. And while, yes, one does get greeted at the door by some current big box merchants, this isn't the type of service or product knowledge (which takes years of experience) that I'm talking about.

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[–] flochucky 11 years ago

The dollar had much more value back then. The printing presses have been running non-stop since then, which greatly de-valued the currency. Blame the federal reserve for empowering a corrupt govt, by being the golden goose that permitted all of the deficit spending and perpetual wars.

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[–] twcassidy 11 years ago

The drive for continually lower prices led to fewer employees at lower wages. Also 400 employees is very likely, they didn't all work in the store at the same time. If you go the Macy's in New York or fields in Chicago you can see the size of those old department stores and just how many counters there were. Plus, I worked for a Barnes and Noble that had nearly 100 employees

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[–] PretoriaDZ 9 years ago

Except for Petco, when I go into most stores, I have a hard time finding anyone to help me shop. I only see store people at the cash registers.

This positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms!Terry-Thomas about US 1963.Hasnt changed much!

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[–] jmastropolo 9 years ago

Obviously, the point of the movie is that the employees were not being paid or treated fairly so they were trying to unionize and the owner knew that would cut into his profits severely so he wanted to prevent it from happening....as many business owners really did for a good part of the 20th century for the same reason.

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