1.0 - Introduction Over the years, American department stores have developed and evolved not only as a commercial business but also as a cultural institution. Although it has weathered many storms and changes since its inception and throughout history, its most predominant enemy has been a change in the lifestyle of the American people (Whitaker, 2013). As customers' needs and wants have changed, department stores have struggled to keep up with demands. It has been argued that the decline of department stores has been ongoing for the last 50 years (Whitaker, 2013). This thesis aims to understand how department stores have historically played a role in consumer culture and spending and, furthermore, how these have evolved and changed in today's retail market. While department stores can't take all the credit for inventing modern shopping, they certainly popularized its conventions and conveniences. They set a new standard for how the consumer should expect to be treated, the type of services that should be provided, and the convenience that should accompany the process of acquiring life's necessities and beauties, all in one place. They have made shopping a leisure pastime. This environment meant that shopping was a means of freedom to look around, picking up items without obligation to purchase. As one historian has observed, department stores: “encouraged the perception of the building as a public place, where consumption itself was almost secondary to the pleasures of a sheltered stroll in a densely crowded middle-class urban space” (Whitaker, 2006). Although this perception and vision of the department store has changed over the years, this article aims to follow the trail of how and why this happened... halfway through the document... er, that same period. This could indicate that consumers are going online to make purchases they once made in department stores. And these trends have been going on for more than a year. Whatever role non-store retailers are playing in the decline of department store sales, looking at the two together shows how dramatic the downward trend in department store sales is compared to a segment with which these stores often compete . The idea that department stores could lose ground to retailers like Amazon is nothing new. However, the extent to which one influences the other is not entirely clear. Even more specialized, non-department stores can play a role in reducing department store sales. Clothing store sales, for example, grew slightly, 1.2 percent, from January 2013 to January 2014, while department store sales declined. (Census Office, 2014)