The Bon Marché Department Stores, Paris, c.1887 (engraving)

The Bon Marché Department stores in Paris were the creation of the French entrepreneur, Aristide Boucicaut (1810-77), who, after 1852 and with his wife, Marguerite (1826-87) revolutionised shopping and retailing in France; they developed the first department store ('Grand Magasin') in Paris, by 1877 the largest in the world; the Boucicauts were responsible for introducing the concept of shopping as an enjoyable experience with glamorous interiors; innovations included fixed prices, home delivery, large choice of goods, guarantees allowing exchanges or returns, catalogues , mail order and advertising; families were targeted by providing reading rooms for husbands while their wives made purchases and by giving balloons and attractively produced cards for children; this illustration shows the stores in the rue du Bac, designed by the architect Louis-Charles Boileau and the engineer Armand Moisan; construction began in 1870 and was completed in 1887; the development of department stores was a major force in democratising consumption and making society more egalitarian by giving women the freedom and ability to shop on their own;