Department store in the context of Curtain

A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in Commonwealth English (see spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza, or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof.

The first known collections of retailers under one roof are public markets, dating back to ancient times, and Middle Eastern covered markets, bazaars and souqs. In Paris, about 150 covered passages were built between the late 18th century and 1850, and a wealth of shopping arcades were built across Europe in the 19th century. In the United States, the widespread use of the automobile in the 1920s led to the first shopping centers consisting of a few dozen shops that included parking for cars. Starting in 1946, larger, open air centers anchored by department stores were built (sometimes as a collection of adjacent retail properties with different owners), and then enclosed shopping malls starting with Victor Gruen's Southdale Center near Minneapolis in 1956.

Sending, or to send, is the action of conveying or directing something or someone to another physical, virtual, or conceptual location for a specific purpose. The initiator of the action of sending is the sender. With respect to humans, "sending" also encompasses instructing others to go to another physical location, whether voluntarily or by force.

Ginza (/ˈɡɪnzə/ GHIN-zə; Japanese: 銀座 [ɡindza]) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo, with numerous internationally renowned department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses located in its vicinity.

Ginza was a part of the old Kyobashi ward of Tokyo City, which, together with Nihonbashi and Kanda, formed the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo (Tokyo).

A hypermarket or superstore is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full grocery lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip. The term hypermarket (French: hypermarché) was coined in 1968 by the French trade expert Jacques Pictet.

Hypermarkets, like other big-box stores, typically have business models focusing on high-volume, low-margin sales. Typically covering an area of 5,000 to 15,000 square metres (54,000 to 161,000 sq ft), they generally have more than 200,000 different brands of merchandise available at any one time. Because of their large footprints, many hypermarkets choose suburban or out-of-town locations that are easily accessible by automobile.

A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term mall originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, it began to be used as a generic term for the large enclosed shopping centers that were becoming increasingly commonplace. In the United Kingdom and other countries, shopping malls may be called shopping centres.

In recent decades, malls have declined considerably in North America, partly due to the retail apocalypse, particularly in subprime locations, and some have closed and become so-called "dead malls". Successful exceptions have added entertainment and experiential features, added big-box stores as anchors, or converted to other specialized shopping center formats such as power centers, lifestyle centers, factory outlet centers, and festival marketplaces. In Canada, shopping centres have frequently been replaced with mixed-use high-rise communities. In many European countries and Asian countries, shopping malls continue to grow and thrive.

The Hudson's Bay Company (abbreviated HBC and colloquially Hudson's Bay) is a Canadian holding company of department stores and commercial property. It is the oldest corporation in North America, founded in 1670, although the company is in the process of being liquidated. It is headquartered at the Simpson Tower in Toronto.

The founding royal charter, issued by King Charles II, granted the company the right of "sole trade and commerce" over the Rupert's Land territory, the borders of which were based on the Hudson Bay drainage basin. It controlled the fur trade throughout English and later British North America, and was its de facto government until it relinquished control of the land to Canada in 1869. The company then diversifed with the ownership and operation of several retail businesses throughout the latter country. It established its namesake department stores in 1881, the Home Outfitters home furnishings stores in 1999, and acquired the Zellers and Fields discount stores in 1978. It also owned several regional department stores that were eventually converted to The Bay, including Morgan's, Simpsons, and Woodward's. Expansions beyond Canada included the United States, where it owned department stores including Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Saks Off 5th in the 2010s; and the Netherlands, where it sold its remaining stores in 2019.

Kohl's Corporation (Kohl's is stylized in all caps) is an American department store retail chain. It currently has 1,165 locations, operating stores in every U.S. state except Hawaii. The company was founded by Polish immigrant Maxwell Kohl, who opened a corner grocery store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1927. It went on to become a successful chain in the local area, and in 1962 the company branched out by opening its first department store. British American Tobacco Company took a controlling interest in the company in 1972 while still managed by the Kohl Family, and in 1979, the corporation was sold to BATUS Inc. A group of investors purchased the company in 1986 from British American Tobacco and took it public in 1992.

Kohl's is headquartered in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. It became the largest department store chain in the United States in May 2012, surpassing its competitor JCPenney. The company is listed on both the S&P 400 and the Fortune 500. In terms of revenue, the chain was the 23rd-largest retailer in the United States in 2019.

Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to the north, with Soho and Mayfair to its immediate south. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around 300,000 daily visitors, and as of 2012 had approximately 300 shops. It is designated as part of the A40, a major road between London and Fishguard, though it is not signed as such, and traffic is regularly restricted to buses and taxis.

The road was originally part of the Via Trinobantina, a Roman road between Essex and Hampshire via London. It was known as Tyburn Road through the Middle Ages when it was notorious for public hangings of prisoners at Tyburn Gallows. It became known as Oxford Road and then Oxford Street in the 18th century and began to change from residential to commercial and retail use, attracting street traders, confidence tricksters, and prostitution. Department stores began to dominate the streetscape in the early 20th century, the most imposing of all being Selfridges (which opened in 1909). The street suffered heavy bombing during World War II, and several longstanding stores including John Lewis & Partners were completely destroyed and rebuilt from scratch.

Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other countries. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was founded in 1962 by brothers Sam Walton and James "Bud" Walton in nearby Rogers, Arkansas. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses.

Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue. Walmart is also the largest private employer in the world, with 2.1 million employees. It is a publicly traded family-owned business (the largest such business in the world), as the company is controlled by the Walton family. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through both their holding company Walton Enterprises and their individual holdings.

Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End. Knightsbridge is also the name of the roadway which runs near the south side of Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner.

Knightsbridge is an affluent district in London with a rich history. Its name has Old English origins, meaning "bridge of the young men or retainers." The area was initially divided between local authorities and has been home to several parishes. Knightsbridge is known as the home of exclusive department stores including Harrods and Harvey Nichols, banks and schools catering to a global clientele including Hill House International Junior School, as well as for renowned restaurants and high-end salons. Property prices in the district are among the highest in the world, with the most expensive apartment at One Hyde Park selling for £100 million in 2007.

Harrods is a luxury department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It was designed by C. W. Stephens for Charles Digby Harrod, and opened in 1905; it replaced the first store on the grounds founded by his father Charles Henry Harrod in 1849, which burned down in 1881. The store spans 1,100,000 square feet (100,000 m) of selling space, making it the largest department store in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Harrods is one of the most famous department stores worldwide, attracting 15 million visitors annually as of 2023. Its building was Grade II* listed on the National Heritage List in 1969.

The original holding company, Harrod's Stores Limited, was formed and began trading on the London Stock Exchange in 1889. It was acquired by and merged into the House of Fraser in 1959, which itself was acquired by the Fayed brothers and became a privately held company in 1985. When the House of Fraser was relisted on the stock exchange, the Harrods business was split off to remain privately held in 1994. The present-day legal entity, the Harrods Group, was established by the Fayed brothers in 2006. It was sold to the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, in 2010.

Liberty, commonly known as Liberty's, is a luxury department store in London, England. It is located on Great Marlborough Street in the West End of London. The building spans from Carnaby Street in the East to Kingly Street in the West, where it forms a three storey archway over the Northern entrance to the Kingly Street mall that houses the Liberty Clock in its centre. Liberty is known around the world for its close connection to art and culture, but it is most famous for its bold and floral print fabrics. The vast mock-Tudor store also sells men's, women's and children's fashion, beauty and homewares from a mix of high-end and emerging brands and labels.

The store is known to spot and champion young designers at the start of their careers, and many now-prominent brands were first available at Liberty. The store played essential role in spreading and popularizing the Modern Style. This continues Liberty's long reputation for working with British artists and designers. Liberty’s makes a cameo appearance in Enola Holmes.

A market hall is a covered space or a building where food and other articles are sold from stalls by independent vendors. A market hall is a type of indoor market and can be found in many European countries. The most common variation of a market hall is a food hall, an area of a department store where food is sold.

Market halls and food halls can also be unconnected to department stores and operate independently, often in a separate building. A modern market hall may also exist in the form of what is nominally a gourmet food hall or a public market, for example in Stockholm's Östermalm Saluhall or Mexico City's Mercado Roma.

Dayton's was an American department store chain founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1902 by George Draper Dayton. It operated several local high-end department stores throughout Minnesota and the Upper Midwest for almost 100 years. Although it was regionally known as a high-quality shopping destination, Dayton's is best remembered for starting the discount shopping chain Target. The company was also instrumental in the history of shopping malls, opening the first indoor shopping mall in the United States—Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, in 1956.

In 1969, Dayton's merged with Michigan department store chain Hudson's to form the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. The Target division of the company eventually grew so large that in 2000 the corporation was renamed the Target Corporation. Dayton-Hudson had acquired Chicago-based Marshall Field's in 1990 and Target rebranded Dayton's stores as Marshall Field's stores in 2001 in an effort to focus more on discount retailing. In 2004, Marshall Field's was purchased by May Department Stores, which subsequently merged in 2005 with Macy's, turning the remaining Marshall Field's stores into Macy's department stores.

The B. Altman and Company Building is a commercial building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, that formerly served as B. Altman and Company's flagship department store. It occupies an entire city block between Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, 34th Street, and 35th Street, directly opposite the Empire State Building, with a primary address of 355–371 Fifth Avenue.

The B. Altman and Company Building was designed by Trowbridge & Livingston in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. Most of the building is eight stories tall, though the Madison Avenue end rises to thirteen stories. It contains a facade made largely of French limestone, except at the Madison Avenue end, where the ninth through thirteenth stories and most of the Madison Avenue side are faced with white brick. The facade contains a large arcade with a colonnade at its two-story base.

An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizontal.

Escalators are often used around the world in places where lifts would be impractical, or they can be used in conjunction with them. Principal areas of usage include department stores, shopping malls, airports, transit systems (railway/railroad stations), convention centers, hotels, arenas, stadiums and public buildings.

Burdines (English: /bɜːrˈdaɪnz/ bur-DYNZE) was an American department store chain founded in 1898 by William M. and John Burdine. It operated exclusively in Florida, with its flagship store and headquarters both located in Miami. It evolved from a carriage-trade shop into a full-line department store chain nicknamed "The Florida Store", decorated with palm trees in the center of the store, painted in pink and blue, and other subtropical colors and motifs. The chain was purchased by Federated Department Stores in 1956; it co-branded the chain as Burdines–Macy's in 2004, and dissolved the Burdines brand completely with its full conversion to Macy's in 2005.

Macy's Herald Square (originally named the R. H. Macy and Company Store) is a department store building on West 34th Street at Herald Square in New York City, New York, United States. It was designed by A. W. Cordes and Theodore de Lemos for Isidor and Nathan Straus, and opened in 1902; expansions designed by Robert D. Kohn opened in 1924, 1928, and 1931, and completed the present-day building. It is the flagship store of the Macy's department store chain, and the headquarters of its holding company Macy's, Inc. The store spans 2.5 million square feet (230,000 m), of which 1.25 million square feet (116,000 m) is selling space, making it the largest department store in the United States and one of the largest in the world. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places and was made a National Historic Landmark in 1978.