INVESTIGATION: Where Do You Find Stuff at a Local Mall? The Sad Truth About Finding Directions at Department Stores

If anyone wants to go a local mall near their home nest, you might want to check this blog report - my blog has exposed local malls and where to find stuff in a department. I traveled to many malls around the Bay Area, looking at department stores and figuring out how to find directions to a particular department or service within a department store. That is my particular mission for each mall that I've have visited. From Santa Rosa to Fairfield, San Mateo to Livermore, and Cupertino to San Jose, and Monterey to Salinas, I've been looking at directories at various department stores. But what I've discovered revealed a troubling problem at some of the malls and department stores that I've visited throughout the Bay Area and Monterey Bay.

WHO HAS THE WORST DIRECTORIES?

JcPenney, Macy's, Sears, Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus, and Bloomingdales are among the big chain department stores that I've looked at. Out of a combined 27 malls (24 malls in the Bay Area, 2 in Monterey County, and one in Santa Cruz County) that includes at least one major department store, several individual department stores and several malls failed to include signage. At Northridge Mall in Salinas, most of the mall had no directory at all, including all department stores - one of the worst malls that I've experienced. Apart from a directory located at several ends of the mall, signage between Sears and JcPenney are non-existent. Furthermore, there were no signage or directory at Sears, JcPenney, and Macy's. I had to figure out the directions to services and restrooms on my own.

The only time that I saw signage at Northridge Mall is between JcPenney and Macy's - but Northridge Mall clearly lacks signage. In my first visit to Northridge Mall in 2014, there were no signage between Sears and JcPenney, but nothing has changed - not even clear signage pointing to directions of where specific major department stores are.

LACK OF SIGNAGE? OR LACK OF DIRECTIONS?

Although I won't specify which malls among the 27 have lack of signage, almost all JcPenney stores in the Bay Area never made the grade in my check in addition to the Salinas store - not even near escalators or elevators. Directories that include restrooms and services have not been visible except poor sporadic signage. There were also poor signage that include "restroom," but only to reveal that there is only either the men's or women's restroom on a particular floor. That was the case at the JcPenney within Eastridge Center in East San Jose.  

But that was not the only case that I saw poor signage at malls. At a Macy's inside NewPark Mall in Newark, I only saw a directory near elevators indicating services and restrooms on the third floor in addition to a standalone women's restroom on the second floor. However, the directory never existed near escalators or store entrances within NewPark Mall. At a Macy's in Antioch, I've discovered a directory near escalators that points to restrooms on both floors, but only the women's restroom' signage were the only service on the first floor as indicated by the signage. That questions me of being honest with their signage.

Meanwhile, some stores seem to have their discretion of whether a directory should be posted or not. Sears stores in a few of the malls never had a directory apart from sporadic signage, including services and public restrooms. Out of the two Nieman Marcus stores (Stanford Shopping Center and San Francisco's Union Square) that I've been to, only the Union Square location have clear signage of where the services are, including restrooms, although I had to find them myself. That location includes "Women's Room" and "Men's Room" to indicate restrooms in a particular floor or area. However, out of all department stores that I've been to, all Bloomingdales and Nordstrom stores that I've been to around the Bay Area have clear signage next to most escalators. 

DEPARTMENT STORES AT SF CENTRE & UNION SQUARE

San Francisco's Union Square is very unique in letting shoppers know where restrooms and elevators are located and the signage that points out where they are. This is because instead the stores in San Francisco lets people navigate their way through multiple floors that generally ranges from three to eight. Directories at most Macy's stores have a unique directory known as "Find Your Way," which lists out what is on the floor, including if there are any services for restrooms and services. However, at both the main store and the Men's store in Union Square, "Find Your Way" is not used. Instead, a unique signage points to a more specific list of what the stores cover. At the main store, Macy's is known to have more than just a regular store. There are restaurants and other services in addition to the Macy's service spread out among the seven floors, with an escalator on the seventh floor leading up to the Cheesecake Factory on the eighth floor.

Most San Francisco department stores have a huge space for shoppers within a confined block of San Francisco streets located near major public transit stations, particularly BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and MUNI (San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency) at Powell Street Station. Because of the difficult navigation through many floors, many department store chains require directories to be posted near escalators and/or elevators.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The clear message to department stores and malls is that the list must be updated in order for the mall to be more aware of the average shopper of knowing locations of a department so that the shopper can look for a particular item. But it remains unclear of how many malls in the United States as a whole have directories of which floor serves which department along with restroom and store services. The signage along malls and department stores needs to be placed somewhere so that shoppers will know what floors cover what departments.