Hi Phil, In my opinion, where you pay for it is irrelevant. It is a store with multiple departments, and as such is a department store. You mentioned Debenhams as an example of a department store - it still exists, of course, and it is still a department store, but you can pay at any till.
On the flip side, no-one would ever describe Foyles as anything other than a bookshop. However, back in the day it was very much stuck in the 70s itself. You couldn’t pay for books from different departments, instead you had go around the shop, choose your books, leave them at their departments, get a set of bills, go to the (admittedly single) till, pay, and then go back and pick up your books from the departments you’d left them in. It was surreal. But aside from that trip down memory lane, you were effectively billed from each department and couldn’t get billed out of department, which sort of meets your definition of a department store. But it wasn’t one - it was (and still is) a bookshop. Cheers Stuart > On 19 Dec 2019, at 19:12, Philip Barnes <p...@trigpoint.me.uk> wrote: > > A simple question, but probably a complex answer. > > Growing up a department store was divided up into a series of > departments, each operated almost as separate shops with their own > staff, own till and you paid for what you bought before you moved on to > the next department. > > The obvious example is Harrods, but Grace Brothers (1) was a familiar > example, along with Rackhams, Debenhams. > > The key feature in my mind is that each department is that you paid in > each shop, you couldn't buy a pair of shoes and pay for them in the > record department. The big thing that kept me out of such places was > the perfume department which always seemed to be just inside the main > door to overpower and drive me back out. > > In OSM we are using department store to describe most commonly for > example M & S. Whilst it does have departments, you take things to a > single till. Food is still sort of separate, but as far as I am aware > you can pay for your socks along with your groceries. > > ASDA Home may fit this, but again you pay at a single till area. > > Was taken to TK Maxx today, had never been in before and had always > assumed it was a clothes shop and had mapped it as such. It sells much > more than clothes, actually felt like BHS used to. But again you take > things to a single till. On checking, iD suggests Department Store. > > What do others think? > > Am I stuck in the 70s? > > Phil (trigpoint) > > > > > > 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTCUuTGNEnI May not be familiar to > all as it doesn't get the repeats that other series of the era do > (Dad's Army, On The Buses) > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
