Sounds you don't hear when shopping on Amazon

[toploader55]

Thought about this while reminiscing with a friend about the "Old Days".

The Department store sounds. Really starts at approx. 0:49.

And let's not forget the background music in Supermarkets.

I guess I'll have to play this the next time I'm on line shopping. Nah... Just won't be the same.

 

[petek]

Hmmm the Dept Store sound video comes up Video Not Available

 

[toploader55]

The Department Store is just a audio.

 

[petek]

Hmm I get no audio or video.. just a black screen saying it's not available, nowhere to even click to start it.

 

[toploader55]

Now ?

I always (for the most part) do a proof read, preview the message and check to make sure the link works before I hit post.

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ3uW_qKkh8&t=60s

 

[iheartmaytag]

What I don't hear

Screaming kids.
Like when you go to Wal-Mart, no matter what time of day; there is always some kid having a melt down. Don't have that while shopping at home.

Also don't hear "Attention K-Mart Shoppers". Oh wait, you don't hear that here anymore anyway, all of our K-Marts are gone.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

I've found as I grown older I have less tolerance towards crowds and noise in stores. While I mostly shop on Amazon, quite a few times I'd had to return things either because they arrived damaged or defective (not working). On the rare occasion I do visit a store, weekday mornings tend to be the quietest times to go.  

 

One thing I do miss from my childhood, the "ding, ding, ding..." in department stores. Who would had thought those were coded messages for the staff?

 

[robbinsandmyers]

The audio sounds like a Sears store with the tone pager in the background which the name escapes me. One thing I dont miss while shopping on Amazon is all the rude people smashing into me with their carriages or all the mothers who fail at controlling their brats.

 

[petek]

Weird if everyone else is seeing it.. all I get is this..

 

[twintubdexter]

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">How well I remember those paging tones from my very early department store days when I worked on the sales floor (very happy times to be sure). As a supervisor they'd assign a number to you for the day or evening like 24 and you'd listen...ding ding...ding ding ding ding. You'd pick up the nearest phone and ask what you were needed for. Long numbers made you "dingy". The old Emporium in San Francisco had no paging or sound system...too old and too big. There were several colored light bulbs at various locations on the sales floors. You were assigned a color and supposed to keep an eye on these bulbs. They were funky, regular full-size colored bulbs you'd buy in a drug store in white ceramic sockets screwed to the walls. Fortunately I never worked on the sales floor in that big place. </span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">When voice paging became popular stores discovered paging "SECURITY" helped to cut down on shoplifting, even if the loss prevention people weren't needed. I miss those department store paging tones. They went along nicely with the "quality smell" the stores used to have.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Maintenance guys would polish these bronze plaques every day. </span>

 

 

 

[gusherb]

The way you talk about that department store makes me imagine how high quality shopping must've been back in those days. I truly wish I could've shopped at our Marshall Fields in its heyday. Now it's just a sad Macy's in the poorly maintained remains of something that used to be wonderful. Any older relative of mine speaks so highly of Marshall Fields it makes me almost want to cry not having been able to see it that way.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Playing the Grocery Store Music video & that has me wondering: Is it "Shopping Spree"????

 

 

 

-- Dave

http://https//www.discogs.com/Ben-McPeek-His-Voices-And-His-Orchestra/release/11020326

 

[askolover]

For me the best time to go shopping is 2AM!  No one in Walmart or Kroger except the stockers (except at Christmas when you will see a couple with their 1yr old child out at 2AM).

 

[tolivac]

The Dept store video doesn't work on either link.The grocer one does.

 

[tolivac]

Got it----Maybe when you are shopping on Amazon or other online service--they could play the bells,phones,screaming kids,complaining customersand background music over your computers speakers!

 

[michaelman2]

Marshall Fields

Gus Herb, several years ago we had a thread where we all reminisced about the glory days of the department stores. Your Marshall Fields was of the stores that was mentioned by several members with fondness. You are right, it is a shell of what it once was in beauty and service. I included the link to the thread where we discussed the tearooms and cafes.

That State St flagship store had the type of paging system that Twintubdexter mentions above. I remember vividly hearing those "dings" in stores and knowing they were a paging system of some type.

Twintubdexter, thanks for deciphering the way they actually worked, now it makes complete sense.

I miss the sound of mechanical cash registers. Especially checking out at a grocery,those "checkers" could really move some inventory. When the "bleep, bleep, bleep" scanners came along, away went the mechanical sounds.

Department Store Restaurant / Tea Room Recipes

I know in every city there was a department store that we all grew up with. In my childhood these were almost magical places where you could go and literally spend the day. Rich's was the Atlanta version, Sakowitz was the Houston version. These are now memories and in other cities, there was LS...

www.automaticwasher.org

 

[twintubdexter]

Don't want to take this topic too far off track...

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">When greedy Macy's (worked for the California division for 5 years when they were at the top of the heap and it wasn't pleasant) took over Federated it was rumored that Marshall Field's would become a Macy's. Many people didn't believe it since Field's was much more than a fine store, it was an institution. My Chicago friends still shake their heads in disgust. Lunch in The Walnut Room doesn't taste the same. Neither do the Frango Mints.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Mechanical registers were fun stuff. One of the first things you learned was what to do if the power went out (there was limited emergency lighting). You opened a hole in the side of the register, inserted a crank and cranked your transaction through. There were flashlights at all the registers to help you see the correct keys. Like the high-wire artist that falls at the circus with a SPLAT!..."The show must go on". </span>

 

<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I was very young when I went to work for The Emporium as an executive trainee just out of San Jose State. It was the tail-end of department store quality and service. I should have been born 25 years earlier but then I'd be dead now. Department stores tried to be all things to all people, but times change. I could see the writing on the wall. Areas with low margins and pricey returns like major appliances vanished. TV/Stereo and Electronics held on for awhile due to technology but they were doomed too. The money-makers like women's ready-to-wear (where the department made big profits even at 50% off) and cosmetics where the vendors paid the salespeople's salary were safe until recently. The history of America's great department stores makes for fascinating reading. </span>

 

<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">This cover looks a little like the San Francisco Big E's dome. By the time I started the openings to the upper floors were long covered up. Merchandise on the first floor was kept in glass cases during the time horses pulled street cars and the like. There was a lot of dust...and no, I'm not that old. The store kept a lot of old fixtures in a huge area called the Lincoln Building. You could sneak in there and look around, spooky and creepy.</span>

 

 

 

 

[this post was last edited: 1/30/2018-17:30]

 

[toploader55]

Mechanical Registers...

I loved the Ca-Chunk Chunk sound of those Mammoth NCR registers at the supermarket. This was a close as I could find.

 

[michaelman2]

"Cashy" the Cash Register

I love ole Cashy....he is making the sound that I miss. I had tried to find that sound on YouTube and could not. This is IT!! In a grocery store when you had a bank of those mechanical registers going there was a distinct sound especially when you had some really good checkers in cadence. The bleep, bleep, bleep has completely replaced that sound.