DEPARTMENT STORE, the name given in the United States to a retail establishment which sells goods of all kinds and in which the merchandise is divided into classes, each one of which is handled as a department, distinct as to management and loca tion within the store, and is carried in the accounts as a separate entity. The purpose of department store organization is to apply the principles of large-scale production to the problems of retail selling and to consolidate the ownership and management of many lines of merchandise under one roof. The original idea of this method was that the combining of overhead and service facilities would offer increased sales attraction and that such an enterprise could be carried on with many economies and efficiencies.
Of the total volume of sales by retail stores, which approxi mated in department store sales represented 16%, or $5,715,040,000. The largest per cent of the total retail sales is done by small, independent speciality and neighbour hood stores, and next to the department store in percentage is the volume done in retail sales by chain and variety stores.
As compared with the unit or individual store, the most direct competitor, the department store offers important conveniences to its customers. It is pre-eminently the shopping store. It has secured so much of the shopping trade which involves the care ful comparison of style, quality and price that the smaller unit dry goods stores have almost abandoned that trade and have confined themselves to a large extent to selling convenience goods. The department store is generally located in a central retail shopping district with every provision for convenience and com fort. Within the store itself, two types of service are usually avail able: (I) services which assist the customer such as credits, deliveries, store directories, personal shopping services, etc. ; and (2) services which attract trade to the store, such as restaurants, rest rooms, musical programmes, classes in embroidery, etc.
The most serious problems with which the department store has to contend are the high operating expense as a retail outlet, and susceptibility to losses through poor salesmanship. This diffi culty is greater with the department store than with the chain store, which caters more largely to convenience goods, or the mail order house, in which the personality of the employees is not in evidence. Although the total department store sales still show a trend to increase, the rate of increase is declining, since the department stores are losing ground to newer and different com petitors such as the non-service chain stores and the numerous neighbourhood stores that have been developed in recent years in suburban communities.
The cost of operation of department stores in 1938 approached 36% of their sales. This is much higher than the cost of operating chain stores and neighbourhood stores. The primary causes for the increase in the operating expenses of department stores have been (1 ) a marked increase in wage rates, due in some localities to the unionization of stores, (2) a substantial increase in taxes, includ ing Social Security and unemployment contributions, (3) the reduction in store hours, and (4) the drop in demand for mer chandise in the higher brackets, due to a reduction in the con sumers' buying power, which has tended to increase the cost of handling each transaction. Yet department store costs are divided over very large volumes of trade which tend to lessen the unit charge. Furthermore, even large unit costs are not a positive disadvantage if they are offset by, or are the means of securing, a rapid rate of turnover. (P. J. R.) DE PERE, a city of Brown county, Wisconsin, 1o9m. N. of Milwaukee, on the Fox river, 6m. from its mouth. It is served by the Chicago and North Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railways, by interurban electric lines, and by lake and river steamers. The population was 5,165 in 1920; 193o it was 5,521. It is a shipping and transfer point; has grain ele vators, foundries and machine shops; manufactures boats, flour, paper, boilers and farm implements; and is the seat of St. Nor berts college (Roman Catholic), established in 1902. The State reformatory is just north of the city. In 1634-5 Jean Nicoleet found here, at the first rapids of the Fox river, a polyglot village of several thousand Indians, and here in 167o Father Allouez established the mission of St. Francis Xavier, the second in the territory that is now Wisconsin. The French called the place Rapides des Peres. Nicolas Perrot, the first French commandant in the north-west, made it his headquarters, and here Father Mar quette wrote the account of his journey to the Mississippi. A few miles south of the city lived for many years Eleazer Williams (c. 1787-1857), who claimed to be the "lost dauphin," Louis XVII. of France, and was an authority on Indians, especially the Iroquois. De Pere was incorporated as a village in 1857 and as a city in 1883.