Updated Dec. 8, 2025, 8:12 a.m. ET
- While many department stores are closing, the family-owned Boscov’s continues to open new locations.
- Boscov’s employees attribute the chain’s success to its focus on customer service.
- Unlike competitors, Boscov’s maintains specialized services to enhance the in-store experience.
The glamorous shopping and social setting that was once the staple of department stores is almost a thing of the past, but Boscov’s is still providing shoppers with a glimpse of the former magic of department stores.
Department stores were once at the epicenter of retailing, occupying large, extravagant buildings and offering a robust selection of products from perfumes to kitchen stoves. Today’s department stores are a shadow of the former shopping glory they were in the 20th century.
But inside the Boscov’s Christiana location, the store is alive and bustling with shoppers zig-zagging between displays, their arms filled with Boscov’s shopping bags. Families are lined up from one end of the store to the other to get a picture with the Grinch and kids can be found singing along to the Christmas music playing over the speakers.
The store is a vibrant shopping destination; far from the vacant aisles and cold florescent lighting some might think of when visualizing the dying department store.
The 107-year-old, family-owned Boscov’s chain is keeping the department charm alive by offering specialized services, creating an environment for socialization, offering a wide variety of products and, above all else, providing good customer service.
“Listening to our customers and having the flexibility of being family-owned makes a difference,” said Boscov’s Christiana location store manager Zora Swayer.
While other department stores have downsized in recent years, this strategy seems to be working for Boscov’s, which has maintained a stream of loyal customers and steadily opened new locations.
The decline of department stores
Shoppers are unlikely to find the extravagant window displays, fashion shows and in-store restaurants in today’s department stores that once made these stores stewards of taste and social connections.
“Department stores were pacesetters for fashion,” said consumer historian Jan Whitaker, who has written two books about department stores. “They had these big auditoriums where they would have fashion shows and lectures. They had music. Some of them had their own bands. They were much more than a store.”
Modern departments stores are experiencing declining sales, mass layoffs and closings as they face obstacles, including competition from discount stores and e-commerce business, as well as waning interest from younger generations.
The rise of discount stores dominating the market has led to the slow demise of departments stores, which traditionally stock higher-end products and name-brand clothing, according to Whitaker.
“People really got into being able to buy things cheaper,” Whitaker said. “And they stopped wanting the frills.”
As shoppers flock to Walmart and Amazon, department stores are taking the hit. JCPenney has closed more than 200 locations across the country since the retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020. Macy’s plans to shut down 150 “underproductive” stores by 2026. Kohl’s slashed about 10% of its corporate workforce and closed 27 stores in early 2025. Saks Off 5th, the discount retailer of its sister store Saks Fifth Avenue, announced in November it will close nine stores in 2026.
While Delaware hasn’t lost any of its JCPenney, Macy’s or Kohl’s locations, Delaware’s last Sears and Kmart stores closed in 2020. Its Saks Off 5th location also closed in 2019.
But while other department stores are closing locations, Boscov’s opened its 51st location in October in a mall near Rochester, New York. It opened inside a former Burlington location and is filling the department store need after the mall’s Macy’s closed in April.
Whitaker noted the fall of malls, where department stores often operate as an anchor, has also facilitated the death of the department store.
But even in the Concord Mall and the Dover Mall, which have both seen a decline in retailers since the pandemic, Boscov’s has maintained a steady stream of customers.
Over 100 years as a family-owned business
Boscov’s was founded in 1918 in Reading, Pennsylvania by Russian immigrant Solomon Boscov. Solomon grew the store from a dry goods store into a full department store as it is thought of today.
Solomon’s son Albert Boscov took over as president in 1969 and under his leadership, opened Boscov’s first location outside Pennsylvania at the Dover Mall in 1982. The Concord Mall location opened a couple years later in 1987 and the chain’s third Delaware location in Christiana opened in September 2001.
Albert retired in 2006, but after a 2008 bankruptcy threatened the company, he retook the reins and bought Boscov’s assets out of bankruptcy court for $300 million.
The chain is now headed by Albert’s nephew, Jim Boscov. Under Jim’s leadership, Boscov’s opened two Connecticut stores, one in Ohio, another in West Virginia and the most recent location in New York.
Today, Boscov’s is the largest family-owned department store in the nation, with over a billion dollars in sales.
The chain has stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio and West Virginia.
Customer service that sells
Being a family-owned business translates to how the chain approaches customer service.
“When you have a family-owned business, it becomes like a family in the store,” Swayer said.
The Christiana location has customers that have been shopping there since it opened, with some coming to the store every day, Swayer said.
Christiana Boscov’s employees attribute the store’s loyal customer base and sustained success to their customer service.
“Our regulars come to have conversations, spend time with you,” Swayer said. “You know their name; they know your name.”
This is achieved through attentive customer service. By having a helpful staff, Swayer said, customers develop relationships with staff and continue coming back to the store for conversation.
Swayer lights up when she talks about Boscov’s customers and the personal connections staff members makes with regulars. And she practices what she preaches. As the manager, Swayer was still out of the floor helping ring up customers on Black Friday and she was chatting with families as she ran the Grinch photo session the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Another thing that sets Boscov’s apart from other stores, according to Cash Office Manager Hugh Thompson, is having sales associates and checkout stations in each department of the store to assist customers, opposed to only having front-end checkout.
“When you’re walking through a department shopping, there’s always somebody there that can help you or guide you, whereas a lot of other places, whether you’re going to a grocery store or whatever, have self-checkout,” Thompson said. “People go there, buy their stuff and leave. Here, you still have contact.”
Wilmington resident Marlene Eckendorf, 81, has been shopping at Boscov’s for decades and said the connections she’s made there are what keep her coming back.
Eckendorf was first a loyal shopper and later worked at the Christiana location’s candy department in 2011. It was while working at Boscov’s that Eckendorf met her second husband, who was working in Boscov’s security department at the time.
“Boscov’s carries a lot of good memories, a lot of history and I can’t say enough about it,” Eckendorf said. “I’m glad they’re here.”
‘A place for social events, not a just a store’
With the option to buy every product online now, Swayer wants to make the in-store shopping experience something special.
“We’re trying to create more of an experience because you can buy something anywhere, but we have to make it special to come to a store,” she said.
For the Christiana Boscov’s, this means offering unique in-store services and hosting events to draw customers into the store.
The Christiana Boscov’s offers bra fittings in their clothing department, interior design assistance in their furniture department and has special senior shopping days where the store opens outside of normal hours so residents of senior centers can have a quieter shopping experience with more one-on-one attention from staff.
Other Boscov’s locations offer hair salons, optical shops and travel services.
“There’s all these little things that we do,” Swayer said, “and you can’t find that kind of service anywhere else.”
These services were once a staple of department stores, Whitaker said.
“Department stores had a lot of services,” Whitaker said. “You could pay your utility bills, they did repairs, they did alterations.”
By keeping these services in-store, Boscov’s has been able to maintain the allure of the traditional department store.
When the location opened in 2001, the Christiana Boscov’s had an auditorium for hosting events, and while the auditorium is gone, Swayer said they are still trying to keep Boscov’s an event location.
The Christiana Boscov’s offers hot dog sales almost every Saturday and hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookie sales on major shopping days like Black Friday. Swayer said providing shoppers with food and refreshments while they walk around the store adds to the experience.
The location also draws people into the store with events such as pictures with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. In the spring, the Christiana Boscov’s hosts an African violet showcase in their seasonal department where botanists compete and exhibit their flowers.
“We’re trying to create a place for social events, not a just a store,” Swayer said.
Making a store a social destination is a byproduct of the old department stores, Whitaker said. Department stores were places to meet friends, grab lunch, take a class or watch a show.
While Boscov’s doesn’t provide the same extravaganza and type of services as department stores of old, Swayer still claims it is a place people come to connect and socialize.
Offering a diverse selection of products
Department stores aren’t the multi-story, shopping emporiums they were in the 20th Century where shoppers could find almost anything they needed inside, but Boscov’s is closer than most by maintaining a large variety of stock.
Most department stores have adapted to the modern shopping age by focusing on clothing, accessories and perfumes, according to Whitaker, but Boscov’s still carries candy, toys, kitchen wares, home décor and furniture.
Shoppers can find tea kettles in every color of the rainbow at Boscov’s, and the home decor department is larger than most downtown boutiques. The famed candy counter, a staple of Boscov’s, feels like a walking into a confectionery shop with its variety of fudge, brittle and chocolate-dipped pretzels.
Thompson said customers appreciate the variety and being a one-stop-shop to find everything they need.
Tammy Griffin, 64, from Chestertown, Maryland agrees: “They have everything I need here. And now that it’s Christmas time, I can come here for everything in terms of gifts.”
Boscov’s often has the perception of being the stores for mothers and grandmothers, but Swayer said Boscov’s is adapting its merchandise to attract younger shoppers as well.
In 2020, fleece-lined hoodies were flying of Boscov’s shelves. When the company looked into why, it found young people were posting TikTok videos of themselves dancing while wearing the sweatshirt.
Swayer said this inspired the company to invest in younger customers and it now carries more casual clothing and brands younger people are interested in.
“We’re trying to target not just grandmother, but the daughter and the granddaughter,” Swayer said. “We’re trying to target that audience, get them to come in and get to know the store.”
Fostering family in the store
Even as a chain department store, Swayer said Boscov’s still feels like a tight-knit, family-owned business and the good relationships between employees transfers into quality customer service, which ultimately fosters the company’s success.
“I’ve been with Boscov’s for 10 years after having owned my own business and when I looked for where to work next, I wanted someone that cared and I wasn’t just a number,” Swayer said. “They do make you feel like they care here.”
Thompson has been at the Christiana Boscov’s since it opened and said there has always been an effort to foster relationships among the staff.
“It’s a hard job and your hours are always crazy but the camaraderie we have, regardless of whatever comes at us, we’re always able to kind of group together and get things done.”
When employees are like a family and customers feel they are a part of that family, it’s a recipe for success, Swayer said, adding that, “We work hard, but we have a lot of fun together.”
Sophia Voight is a growth and development reporter. Reach her with feedback and story tips at svoight@delawareonline.com.
