Bloomingdale's Department Stores Are Shrinking

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Could Bloomingdale's be gearing up to open smaller department stores across the country? WWD checks in at the new Bloomingdale's at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, a "reimagined" store that manages to fit 68 designer shops into just 125,00-square-feet. The renovated store, with its glassy exterior and sleek aesthetics, replaces an 18-year-old, 220,000-square-foot Bloomingdale's in the mall.

"Stanford is Bloomingdale's smallest full-line store. It's the model of the future — a smaller upscale department store," Bloomingdale's chairman and CEO Tony Spring told WWD. "It's a perfect complement to flagship locations. There's an efficiency there without losing the specialness of the store. It's a way to have multiple stores in key markets that are sized to the opportunity."

WWD reports that Bloomingdale's is focusing on California, and looking to possibly add stores in Florida, Arizona, Texas, the Pacific Northwest, and perhaps the Middle East. Smaller stores are already planned for Miami, where a 120,000-square-foot store will open in fall 2016, and Hawaii, where a 167,000-square-foot store will open in fall 2015.

Cool, high-tech features at the new Palo Alto Bloomingdale's include wall-mounted iPads in dressing rooms so shoppers can look up product info and message sales associates, same-day delivery within a 15-mile radius, and handheld technology so associates can ring up customers on the floor without a cash register.
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