Do You Remember Ames Department Store? What Happened To This Store?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Ames Department Stores was in business from 1958 until 2002. They were once the 4th largest discount department chain in the US. They grew so big, too fast and that was their downfall. This is their story.
Remember that store for sure. Especially the one in Massena NY and St. ALBANS VT. Miss that place.
Thanks for watching
Remember 'lay aways"..especially at Christmas! I miss that😢❤
Ames had a commercial campaign we LOVED. it was hilarious. " Hey Little Gladys" ..the woman who played big Gladys also played little Gladys...to this day we still say..hey little Gladys to each other. I have been unsuccessful in trying to find it.
I haven't seen that commercial
When I was 7 years old I lived in Bren Mar Park Apts in Alexandria VA and there was an Ames right across the street from us. Now I believe they made luxury apartments where it used to stand.
Sad, right. Iconic stores replaced by apartments or housing.
Our Ames in Gettysburg Pa went out when WalMart came to town, I got some cheap GI Joes when that happened. Radio Shack was in the same strip mall, that with Little Caesars and video rental was a good Saturday night!
thanks for watching
We had an Ames in Dansville NY. They closed in October 2002. It is now a Tractor Supply.
Thank you, Eric C, this was a great snapshot of the retail market not only back then, but even to this day. The name "Ames" is familiar to me, but I can't swear I ever saw one or went inside. K Mart went the way of the Dodo, due to poor upper level management (then they were bought by the guy who ruined Sears). Bad Karma. Walmart is already feeling some pains (high theft, etc.), and closing some stores. Something will replace them, too. Good video!
thank you for watching. I have done many videos about many of those iconic department stores. Check them out. Thanks.
I loved Ames. We had one just 5 minutes from our house when I was growing up and my mother used to love to shop there in the 90s. My dad hated it, LOL. Then, when my husband and I first started dating and moved in together back in 2000, we shopped there a lot as well. They had stores all over New England, especially here in Maine (where I'm from) and in Massachusetts (where my husband is from). Ames always had some of the best housewares at super low prices, which was perfect for a young couple on a budget, LOL. After we got engaged and bought our first house in the fall of 2001, we bought this white tile top kitchen table and chairs at Ames. We had that table for YEARS. It then came with us when we bought our second house in 2008. That was the sturdiest table ever, and we only paid $150 for it with four chairs! We finally got rid of it just a couple of years ago, but oh the memories that table held, almost 20 years worth. We were kind of sad to part with it because it was like a little piece of history to us since it was one of the things we had bought way back when we were first starting out as a very young couple, but it was really old, worn out, and had seen much better days, so it finally needed to be replaced. When we were cleaning out our basement a couple of years ago, we found some old Ames bags. One of them had a receipt inside from July of 2001! It was so nostalgic. I remember right before they closed in 2002, we went and raided their going out of business sale and got like 3 carts full of stuff for less than $100. I miss that store so much! You just never knew what you might find there! It's hard to believe they've been gone for 20 years. We were so sad when they went out of business.
thanks for sharing those nice memories. Thanks for watching
robin leach in ames like jeff bezos in a walmart
Missed Ames stores when I go to Plattsburgh, NY USA for shopping as a french Canadian citizen (Montreal area). Miss that place too :( Thanks again Eric C Productions for that video :)
My wife worked at AMES and the worst part was that the cash registers were set up to use "scanners", but the cashiers were required to manually input the SKU codes instead
I’m saddened they are gone. I hear they are supposed to come back in spring of 2023. Hopefully it’s not some sick joke someone is pulling.
thanks for watching
It is true
I have worked for 4 major retail stores Aimes, Zayres, Meijers and 2 different Walmarts. By far Aimes and zayers were the best to work for. followed Meijers and dead last Walmart.
thanks for sharing that, you know first hand then.
Thanks for sharing your experience…and it really sums up the reality surrounding us. For retail corporations to flourish, employees are often the ones that end up suffering. Walmart is making profit and the customers are happy…but at what cost?
@@nondescriptnyc the cost of all of those defunct stores, like a trail of destruction.
Thank you eric
No problem, thanks for your suggestion
@@EricCProductions76 your welcome
I loved Ames they had a great toy department used to go there all the time with my parents & grandmother I have some great memories there the people who worked there were very nice & some of them we got to know really well I've heard that they were great to work for to I'm pretty excited that they are coming back this spring & can't wait to check it out unfortunately I think buying out hills was a big blow To them I mean hills & Ames were both pretty similar
thanks for sharing your memories
@@EricCProductions76 I can’t wait until Ames comes back I love nostalgia & memories
@@58twright Hopefully it will be like before but it may be like Toys R Us in Macys. Nostalgia but not like going into a real Toys R Us.
We used to joke that their slogan should be, "We Ames to rip you off!"
that's funny, thanks for watching
I loved Ames Department Stores a lot because they had very excellent clothing and very excellent socks so can you please get someone to open up Ames Department Stores because I really want Ames Department Stores to come back again because they had very excellent clothes and I liked them a lot thank you.
thanks for watching
I miss the Ames in Abington Ma, it had everything 😭 Isn’t it coming back to some parts?🤞
rest in peace ames your missed more then you know 😢
It's been decades since the time when thousands of independent department stores dotted the American landscape. But in the latter half of the 20th Century, large corporate department stores, like Walmart, put thousands of small town department stores out of business!
Both the working owners and employees were left jobless, and together with other large corporations, owned by private individuals who do no work at all, sent factories overseas to places where children and desperately poor adults work in the most squalid of conditions for pennies an hour, or used their stolen wealth to weaken unions in the US in order to pressure workers to accept huge pay cuts, leaving American workers no other way to survive other than to take the pitifully low wages and zero-to-no benefits, such as what the typical Walmart employee receives!
Interestingly, the justifications for stealing wealth from workers goes directly back to when the owners of large lands excused their claim to own, not just the wealth workers created, but the workers themselves--overt slavery! They, too, bragged about how "generous" they were, "providing homes, clothing and food" to their "servants"! They further claimed to have delivered their slaves from pagan darkness and "provided them with honest work"!
Sure, we can be glad that over slavery was outlawed in the US, but the owner class has, ever since then, done all they can to get as close as they can to enslaving the vast majority of Americans by claiming it's OK to own, if not the workers themselves, all the wealth their work creates, only to return a very small portion of it back to them, and they return even less every chance they get!
Rick Lannoye, author of www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Slavery-Taking-Workers-Illegal/dp/B08BD9CWLP
Rick Lannoye, Don't forget now a lot of stuff is cheaply made and will not last you long. Back in the day, these now defunct small stores cared about quality and made stuff to last.
Rick Lannoye, Don't forget now a lot of stuff is cheaply made and will not last you long. Back in the day, these now defunct small stores cared about quality and made stuff to last.
I would have liked going to Ames. Unfortunately, I never got the chance as they pulled out of Florida during their first bankruptcy when my two older sisters were babies. Ames would have had a 50/50 chance of surviving a little longer if they didn't make such rash decisions buying out so many dying companies (especially Hills Department stores). They also would have to make a huge effort to keep up with the times as much as possible.
thanks for watching
They're coming back this spring
I used to work at one back when I was a teenager. 6 months after it closed I ended up working at the walmart next door along with most of the other former ames employees lol.
Ames got cocky buying up all these failing stores and allegedly had questionable inventory practices.
That's cool, thanks for watching
I've heard they were great to work for
Wow, Walmart the giant steps in for the kill..
always.
Sam Walton was still around when Ames went in trouble back in early 90s. It wasnt walmart. It was a bunch of greedy managers trying to acquire too much and get in huge debt.
HATED HATED HATED Ames! They bought out McKeesport (Pittsburgh area) PA based GC Murphy Company and converted Murphy's Mart stores to their junky, poor quality Ames. They got rid of so many merchandise categories, sold off and destroyed the Murphy's variety stores that anchored many small town shopping districts, shuttered a huge distribution center costing hundreds of jobs. No loss when A-mess closed.
thanks for sharing those memories
I like your videos man, I have one about Ames as well although not as good haha
K Mart is also closed
Were there Ames in California 🛍️🏬🏪¿
I don't think so.
Do think it okay to do Shopko and Gap video 📲👍✨😇 ps what your wife name again¿
@@juanserrano5629 melissa
Yes their was my biogical father was manger of my local Ames and he help set up many Ames stores who take over other closed stores and their was California locations but they didn't last long and also they weren't even listed
Under as former Ames locations
@@joshuajerrythereviewer Thanks for all that information. Its nice to know someone who has first hand knowledge of the store.
Murphy's Mart was a better store than the Ames stores that replaced them and Ames closed not long after the takeover, leaving some communities with no decent store. I resented that.
sorry to hear that
My Zayres changed to Ames
I , have to put that I'm getting paid for owning Ames .
Ames killed Zayres
Then the real death was when they closed in 1989 in the Alabama area
Walmart basically killed it
They killed alot of department store chains.
Walmart didnt kill anyone. Most of those failed companies accumulated too much debt and trying to become too big too quick. I hate walmart, but Sam Walton managed shit way different than those top managers in most of those corporations.
Also that Ames bought out hills
Ames & hills were both pretty much the same
Worst place I ever worked.
Really?? I've heard that they were great to work for
What happened to Ames. Top management. Very poor and toxic. Those managers and HR personnel go to other organizations and bring those same poor values.
pretty sad, thanks for watching
I've heard that they were great to work for
They are coming back
Ames made the mistake of buying more retailers putting them into debt
THat's right, and its too bad. They seemed like a good place to shop.
@@EricCProductions76 Wal-Mart is doing that today and slowly losing stores you may soon have to make a video on them just saying.
@@bostonspencer2979 you are probably right. Thanks for watching.
Finally, someone that doesnt regurgitate shit and writes something that makes sense.
@@bostonspencer2979 Sam Walton would shoot himself if he could come back to life and see what's going on.
thumbs down, fellow.
Ames reminds me of old TG&Y in Texas in the 1960's. Walmart & Target killed them