Virginia Postrel, Columnist

Death of the Shoe Salesman, Finally

The shoe department at Macy's is finally catching up to how people want to shop.

March 17, 2017 at 3:23 PM UTC

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

1489761044_GettyImages-542381329 — Photographer: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images

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Another storied occupation is on its way out and the replacement is neither robots nor foreign workers. We’re witnessing the death of the shoe salesman.

Macy’s recently said it would convert more shoe departments to an “open sell” format, where customers serve themselves from stacks of boxes. J.C. Penney is experimenting with the format. It’s the way sales have long worked at stores like DSW and TJX Co.’s Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx.