Paris Department Stores

Bargain-basement stores would include the excellent Monoprix chain, which have food as well as the other usual department-store items. The BHV (Bazaar de l'Hôtel de Ville) and Samaritaine would come next, I think, followed by the grands magasins: Galeries Lafayette, Au Printemps, and Paris's oldest, the Bon Marché.

Samartaine is currently closed for renovation. It closed unexpectedly in June '05 and will remain closed for the next 6-7 years!

Do not visit Monoprix in Bastilia area.
You will cry...

I'd strongly recommend Galeries Lafayette. When you walk in go straight to the information desk, show them your passport and they will give you a 10% discount card good off almost everything(not the high designers). Once you spend $200-225, make sure you get the VAT back.

Galleries Lafayette and Pringtemps have free fashion shows. GL is on Friday at three and requires a reservation. Don't miss the roof deck on the 7th floor for a great view of Paris. Pringtemps' show is on Tuesday at 10:00 under the beautiful stained glass dome. No reservation needed. Both stores have restaurants and the stores are next to each other.

THe nicest department store in Paris is the Bon Marche on the Left Bank. It is the high-end department store, just gorgeous, but more expensive than the others.
Printemps is my second favorite.
Monoprix is like Target, I would say...

Chasteel

For a food lover's paradise, be sure to also check out the Grand Epicerie which is adjacent to Bon Marche.

The fanciest and most famous department stores are Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, which are right next to each other just northwest of the Opera Garnier. Each of them consists of several large buildings with seven or eight floors.

On the Left Bank, Le Bon Marché is another fancy department store, although it's smaller than the Big Two.

At one time, La Samaritaine was part of the group, but its new owner closed it not longer after trying to revamp it into yet another upscale overpriced tourist trap.

Even longer ago, Aux Trois Quartiers was in the club, not far from the Big Two next to the Madeleine, but today it is a shopping mall (a fairly nice one, but not very big).

The BHV is in a class by itself: it's not a chichi department store like the others, but instead a store that sells just about everything conceivable for the home, from lightbulbs to designer furniture. It's across the street from City Hall.

I never visited th Tati. I know that's gone. What was it like?

Since when is Tati gone? This is news...
Tati is awesome...it's a treasure hunt. Picture bins and bins of clothes, some of them pretty bad, some of them from great Parisian stores, all of them dirt cheap.
You have to be on a mission.

Chasteel

Tati is a low-rent version of Filene's basement, and has the same sort of clothes you could find on many a street stall anywhere in Europe. But

(a) it is unbelievably cheap if you find the airline have lost all your clothes or you desperately need another couple of layers
(b) it isn't all nylon and pseudo-branded sportswear - I've bought some perfectly OK cotton shirts to wear to the office for a handful of Euro each, and they often have things like packets of pens for a Euro
(c) the surrounding area is a bustling multi-cultural working-class mix - a world away from the Grands Magasins and worth a look for the contrast effect.

I think some of the stores that would really be most comparable to Kmart aren't in Paris, but Tati was the worst large dept. store I have encountered in Paris. I thought it was just dreadful, although some of their things may have been okay -- but those things usually weren't that cheap and the general atmosphere wasn't very nice.

I know some of their stores have closed (and I think the ones on rue de Rennes where I shopped), but I have not heard the entire company is gone -- seems unlikely since they still have a website which is kept up-to-date and active and gives addresses, several in Paris.
http://www.tati.fr/

I think most of them are very nice -- but I'd take someone to Galleries Lafayette probably just for the dome.

Large sections of the grand dept. stores aren't that different than many in the US, so I wouldn't say they make Macy's look like Kmart.


I wouldn't call Monoprix bargain basement exactly. It's not that cheap, although not a grand dept. store. It's not as low as Kmart, for example--maybe more like Target.

topping

Thanks for the good responses, also, is there a department store or mall in the 13th a., just north of Chinatown area? I read that somewhere and now I can't recover the source to double check that? anyone have any experience in that area?

yeah, there is a mall in the 13th, right near Place d'Italie metro stop. YOu can't miss it if you get off there. There are some Chinese sort of "malls" or large supermarkets around there, also, are you interested in them? Well, if you are, just walk down ave d'Ivry from the metro stop.

The "mall" in the 13eme is in the building across form the Place d'Italie metro exit. It is a decent-sized mall and has a Tati, several smaller stores, a good supermarket and a small branch of Galeries Lafayette (I think!).

Correction; it was (as of May 2005) a small branch of Printemps.

The mall in the 13th is off the place d'Italie and is predictably called Italie 2. Large shopping malls are not common in Paris, but there are a few. They are often on the edge of town or just beyond. There's Bercy 2, Grand Ciel, and of course Les Quatre Temps in La Défense that come immediately to mind.

Tati is still in business. It has a tacky pink, white, and blue checkerboard decor. It is famous for its rock bottom prices and extremely low-end merchandise. It did close some stores in Paris that were simply out of place, in areas where the residents were not likely to be the type to shop at Tati. In other parts of town the chain continues to thrive. It's the kind of store where a lot of merchandise is simply thrown on the floor by customers, and where signs on every column show a pair of handcuffs with the caption "shoplifters get free bracelets."

The famous department stores (Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, and Le Bon Marché) are at the other end of the scale. Alas, Les Trois Quartiers and La Samaritaine are history now.

This past April, my husband and I spent a day shopping at GL and Au Printemps. In addition to the glorious interiors, the level of service was superb, and we bought merchandise made in France, very high quality at decent prices.
Our BHV experience was mixed. We had forgotten the battery charger for our movie camera, and a very helpful man who conversed with me in franglais found something which would work for us. But when we went to the checkout line, all the cash registers weren't working and we waited for ages in the heat of the building. Then we poked around and found the stairs leading to the roof, and were awed by the panorama. This was once a Grand Magazin, like GL, but probably in the sixties they put in low ceilings and stripped it of all its grandeur. Outside you get an idea of what it once was. It does fill a need, however.

I found some very lovely fabric in BHV. I covered a bench with it and it always reminds me of Paris. I also bought an open and closed sign in french for my fireplace. That was a cool find. We ate at the cafeteria on the top floor. Very nice and reasonable.
Across from Bon Marche is their food store. We bought a picnic dinner there and took it to the dock of the Seine river cruise and ate while we waited for dusk to take the cruise. It was memorable. Enjoy!