Amazon returns bring people through the door. Sephora gives them a destination. Kohl’s next challenge is making the rest of the shopping trip earn its place.
The store that taught America to shop is pruning its footprint and putting people back on the floor. Its turnaround asks a deceptively simple question: how much department store do customers actually want?
A department store can sell more and keep less. Dillard’s offers a useful lesson in the opposite ambition: protecting the value of what passes through the till.
Burlington Stores, Inc. is one of the largest off-price retailers in the United States, selling brand-name apparel, footwear, accessories, baby gear, and home goods at prices well below full-price department stores. Founded in 1972 as Burlington Coat Factory, the company built its business on opportunistically buying excess and closeout merchandise from thousands of vendors and passing the savings to shoppers through a rotating, treasure-hunt assortment. Headquartered in Burlington, New Jersey and trading on the NYSE under the ticker BURL, it operates more than 1,200 stores and is pursuing an aggressive small-format expansion toward a long-term target of 2,000 doors.