These Department Stores Once Thrived A Decade Ago But Have Since Disappeared

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These Department Stores Once Thrived A Decade Ago But Have Since Disappeared

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Clearance sale signs have been a common sight over the last several years.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Images

It’s not an easy time to be a department store.

The past decade has proved terminal for several retailers that failed to overcome stagnating sales and dwindling foot traffic, but department stores may have been hit hardest of all. Thanks to their enormous physical spaces and particularly sluggish push toward digital innovation, institutions that were once thriving centers of commerce are increasingly falling off the already sparse retail map.

Though department stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom are weathering the storm — or at least staving off a total demise — others haven’t been so lucky. Bon-Ton, for example, shuttered all seven of its department store brands in 2018 after failing to find a buyer post-bankruptcy, sounding the alarm for peers dangling by a thread.

While some of these stores found new life by being absorbed into existing brands or forming an online-only presence, they will never be the same mainstays we remember from the department halcyon days.

We took a closer look at the department stores we bid adieu to in the 2010s as the retail graveyard continues to grow.

Filene's Basement

Getty

Discount retailer Filene’s Basement shut down operationsafter parent company Syms Corp. failed to bounce back from a string of bankruptcies during the increased competition in the off-price market. Filene’s Basement closed its remaining stores in 2011 and has since been resurrected in the form of an e-commerce site.

Henri Bendel

Henri Bendel

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Henri Bendel

Henri Bendel said goodbye for good in January 2019, closing all remaining stores including its iconic New York flagship store after parent company L Brands decided to liquidate its assets.

bonton closing

AP/Charles Krupa

In 2018, Bon-Ton Stores Inc. announced it would liquidateall 256 of its stores across its seven brands, including its namesake Bon-Ton store. After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company failed to find a buyer and ultimately called it quits. Today, Bon-Ton has a small online presence.

Elder-Beerman

elder beerman

Yelp

Elder-Beerman was part of the 2018 Bon-Ton liquidation, though it had already been reduced to a fraction of its original fleet when several stores were absorbed or transformed into Bon-Ton stores in the years before.

Herbergers

Yelp

Herberger’s was yet another victim of the Bon-Ton liquidation.  It was founded in the Midwest in 1927.

Carson’s

carsons

Yelp

Carson’s, which was primarily located in the Midwest, also shuttered as a result of the Bon-Ton liquidation.

Bergner's

Facebook/Bergner’s

Bergner’s, essentially Carson’s upscale Midwestern cousin, closed alongside its fellow Bon-Ton brands in 2018.

Boston Store

boston store

Yelp

Bon-Ton-owned Boston Store, founded in 1897 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, also closed its doors for good in 2018.

Younkers

Nati Harnik/AP

Last but not least, Younkers said its swan song after operating for more than a century, joining its fellow Bon-Ton brands in the retail graveyard.