One thing that immediately caught my eye in the fixture sale was this desktop drafting table. I'm not entirely sure why Macy's would have had this in the first place (perhaps it dates back to when the Bon Marche had offices in this building), and it's even weirder to see it around these days since these things are pretty much completely obsolete these days (thanks to software like AutoCAD). Of course, it doesn't look like it's been used much lately, but still, someone thought they could sell this for $60, which seems insane!
I don't know how The Bon Marché handled things specifically, but my understanding is that a lot of department stores decades ago did a lot of store fixture and store decor design in general at the store level and that each location would have a team of designers and craftsmen who would build this in the backrooms/basements of these stores. I've heard this was the case with Sears at the very least.
ReplyDeleteOperating stores in such a manner probably wasn't very efficient from a modern business perspective, but it did provide good jobs for people. In a similar note, a lot of department stores had store-level buyers and such and so that's why these stores have so much office stuff for sale during liquidation sales. There were several offices within these stores for people who had expertise in the various departments.
I guess that makes sense, as weird as it seems in this day and age! It seems crazy that stores would have such decentralized control, but I guess back then department stores were making plenty of money to pay for it.
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