Patterns of Change in Retail Institutions in the United States with Special Attention to the Traditional Department Store

Abstract

One of the more engrossing facets of marketing in the United States is the metamorphosis of retail institutional form. For well over 100 years, many historians and marketers have been fascinated by the successful entry of new types of retail organisations into the market and the gradual demise of the old. This interest has resulted in an extensive literature describing these changes and, in more recent years, a succession of theories to explain the process.