Saks Fifth Avenue department store in Union Square, San Francisco has announced that from next month, they are a by-appointment only retail business

Even a department store, traditionally where one visits—alone or with family or friends—to randomly shop, is now going to discourage browsing whenever the desire hits. The practice is no longer unique to freestanding luxury stores. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the storied Saks Fifth Avenue in the city’s Union Square is going to institute operational change: the store will be an “appointment-only” business. Shopping at Saks (as it is affectionately known) for San Franciscans, as well as tourists to the city, would be a pre-arranged affair from next month. Saks’ announcement of no walk-ins is puzzling considering that Union Square is losing not just the buzz as a shopping hot spot, but also footfall. Locals are, in fact, already giving the area a miss, so has clothing retailers such as Anthropologie, Banana Republic and sibling brand Athleta.

Local media quoted a company spokesperson saying that Saks is “always looking for innovative ways to optimize our store experience to match luxury consumers’ evolving expectations.” It is hard to understand why the optimisation would discourage spontaneity when it comes to the store experience or if consumers’ retail expectations are so evolved that only letting the department store know ahead of all visits will enhance any pleasure that could be found in making purchases in their premises. Perhaps Saks is merely playing catch-up. Freestanding stores of luxury brands have, even before the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing that followed, requested appointment-only store visits. While the practice is not standard, it is possible when visiting, say Louis Vuitton, you’d be stopped at the entrance and asked, “Are you here to see someone?”

Saks is “always looking for innovative ways to optimize our store experience to match luxury consumers’ evolving expectations”

The new strategy that Saks shall be adopting could be a reaction to the rampant retail robbery that has plagued San Francisco, including Union Square, and has intensified these past years. Even mighty Louis Vuitton could not have in place security systems that would discourage destructive thieves. In 2021, their Union Square store, across from the now-closed Neiman Marcus, and barely a block from Saks Fifth Avenue, was “emptied out” by thieves, as SFGate described it. The daring heist took place during the store’s operating hours. Eight individuals were arrested after their orchestrated getaway. According to the San Francisco Standard, only one of them received jail time for the larceny. But the LV store was not the only victim in Union Square. Kindred Dior, too, was broken into in the same year.

Given such a retail climate, it is not surprising that Saks has decided that shoppers make an appointment before they visit the store. Some of the city’s consumers consider such a requirement to be a shift in Sak’s target audience to the “high-end group”. Saks says on their website that the Union Street store “features curated arrivals from top designers in women’s and men’s fashion, beauty, handbags, shoes, fine jewelry and more”. While that sounds like a classic department store set-up, Saks could really want only to cater to a smaller group of shoppers. Appointment scheduling might, on the surface, sound like giving the customer the allotted time so that SAs can provide the best of the store, but it also could be seen as discouraging the spontaneity that can make shopping more enjoyable. Social activities have changed considerably. These days, we cannot go to our favourite café on a whim. Looks like it’d be the same for our preferred store.

Illustration: Just So