![\"Shoppers](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1d90.jpg\")
Shoppers walk outside the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., January 6, 2026 – REUTERS\/Angelina Katsanis<\/p>\n\n By<\/b>
\n
Reuters\n <\/p>\n
\n Published<\/b>
\n <\/p>\n
January 8, 2026<\/p>\n
\n From Paris to New York, department stores are sharpening their focus on curated shopping experiences- ice-skating shows, wine tasting, and architectural tours- to try to win back shoppers.<\/p>\n
Shoppers walk outside the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., January 6, 2026 – REUTERS\/Angelina Katsanis<\/p>\n
The push has gained urgency as Saks<\/a> Global’s mounting troubles highlight the sector’s struggle to stay relevant amid competition from luxury brands’ own boutiques and fast-growing e-commerce platforms.\u00a0Analysts say the trend is more than cosmetic. It reflects a structural shift in a sector under pressure from changing consumer habits and declining foot traffic.<\/p>\n “In today’s market conditions, selling luxury goods requires an outstanding experience, which works best in outstanding venues,” said Benjamin Sebban, head of retail investment at Knight Frank in Paris.\u00a0<\/p>\n Qatar-owned Printemps<\/a>‘ new Manhattan store features paper replicas of \u2060French landmarks- a reminder of its Parisian heritage- and hosts exclusive launches and wine tasting.<\/p>\n “This is more than a place to shop- it’s a space to live, linger, and immerse yourself in a new kind of luxury lifestyle,” Printemps America CEO Thierry \u2060Prevost told Reuters, highlighting the store’s fine dining restaurant, champagne bar and talks with designers.<\/p>\n In Paris, Galeries Lafayette<\/a> spent more than 100 million euros ($117 million) restoring its stained-glass cupola, crediting the revamp with lifting visits above pre-pandemic levels.\u00a0The push aligns with research from consultancy Bain<\/a> that found experiential sectors like hospitality and fine dining drove luxury market growth between 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n Success isn’t guaranteed, however.\u00a0LVMH<\/a> poured around \u200d750 million euros \u200cinto refurbishing the art nouveau building of its La Samaritaine<\/a> department store facing Paris’ Rue de Rivoli. But the store still struggled after its \u20602021 reopening in comparison with LVMH’s Le Bon Marche<\/a> Paris \u200cstore, and the pair were combined in a restructuring last year.<\/p>\n Analysts say department stores are betting that curated events and architectural upgrades \u200ccan revive their relevance amid tougher trading.<\/p>\n Saks Global, whose bonds are publicly traded, reported a 13% year-on-year drop in second-quarter revenue to $1.6 billion in October and an adjusted core loss of $77 million.\u00a0CEO Marc Metrick stepped down after the company missed a bond payment, triggering reports it was preparing for bankruptcy.<\/p>\n While analysts cite inventory missteps and acquisition-related debt as key factors, they say Saks’ plight reflects a deeper structural squeeze: department stores \u200dare losing ground to mass-market chains offering value and luxury brands’ own boutiques promising exclusivity.\u00a0“What you’re seeing with Saks is a symptom of a much larger problem,” said UBS<\/a> analyst Jay Sole.<\/p>\n Bernstein analysts say US department stores should move toward concession-heavy models- providing multi-brand sales staff while letting brands manage \u200coperations and inventory.\u00a0Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II \u2060offers \u200ba template: the city leases prime store spaces through a bidding process, and says values have quadrupled in a \u2060decade.<\/p>\n “Multi-brand retailers need to \u200breinvent themselves and go back to their scouting and discovery mission,” said Bernstein analyst Luca Solca<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some stores are experimenting with partnerships.\u00a0In November, Parisian retailer BHV<\/a> hosted the first physical outlet for Chinese budget brand Shein<\/a>, although the move drew criticism from some competitors and consumers.<\/p>\n “The right answer would be for department stores \u200bto build out their own online offering, with their own identity,” Knight Frank’s Sebban said.<\/p>\n Global department store sales are projected to have declined by 4% to 6% in 2025 and to show little recovery through 2030, Bain forecast in November, \u2060lagging growth estimates for the luxury sector overall.\u00a0US retailer Macy’s<\/a> warned in December of \u2060weaker-than-expected holiday-quarter profits due to cutbacks in discretionary spending.\u00a0London’s Harrods<\/a> in October reported a 17% decline in underlying operating profit for 2024.<\/p>\n By contrast, e-commerce players are thriving.\u00a0MyTheresa, owned by LuxExperience, more than doubled quarterly core earnings in November, offering similar products to Saks but with perks like free shipping for orders over $400.\n <\/p>\n \n \u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2026 All rights reserved.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Reuters Published January 8, 2026 From Paris to New York, department stores are sharpening their focus on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[27675,952,165587,748,393,2584,41943,4884,65897,206902,145206,206904,15909,13279,173767,5775,1144,193319,15910,204080,206903,712,8162,24275,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-682833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-bain","10":"tag-beauty","11":"tag-bhv","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-fashion","15":"tag-galeries-lafayette","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-harrods","18":"tag-la-samaritaine","19":"tag-le-bon-marche","20":"tag-luca-solca","21":"tag-luxury","22":"tag-lvmh","23":"tag-macys","24":"tag-network","25":"tag-northern-ireland","26":"tag-printemps","27":"tag-professionals","28":"tag-saks","29":"tag-saks-fifth-avenue","30":"tag-scotland","31":"tag-shein","32":"tag-ubs","33":"tag-uk","34":"tag-united-kingdom","35":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115861051592980634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}