ICONIC SHOPPING EXPERIENCES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Bass Pro Shops

This outdoor retailer sells fishing gear, camping equipment and clothing. However, it also has an added bonus for nature enthusiasts: Wildlife mounts are displayed throughout each store. The museum-quality mounts of animals like bears, moose and deer can be seen in replicas of their natural settings. Visitors are also treated to fish-filled aquariums and in some cases, a separate aquarium with live alligators. The retailer says for many, it’s like a trip to a natural history museum.

“People take vacations to travel to our stores,” said spokesman Larry Whiteley. “They have weddings in them. Yellow school buses bring kids there for educational experiences.”

Bass Pro Shops has 94 existing stores in the United States and Canada. All stores have an indoor water feature that showcases fish species that are indigenous to the area. Bass Pro Shops is also known for its Outdoor Skills Workshops, teaching skills as varied as fly fishing, Dutch oven cooking, archery hunting with an archery range in the store, and GPS navigation. They hold many skills workshops with the top names in the outdoor world.

Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, United States.

It opened in August 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers’ markets in the United States. It has more than 10 million visitors annually; Pike Place Market is Seattle’s most popular tourist destination and is the 33rd most visited tourist attraction in the world. And, with good reason, the fish throwing antics of the fishmongers are very entertaining and much appreciated by tourists.

It has a variety of unique shops such as antique dealers, comic book and collectible shops, small family-owned restaurants, fishmongers, fresh produce stands and craft stalls. Besides them, the market hosts Dining, Nightlife and Street Performers and Musicians.

From fishing to furniture, we peep into Jordan’s Furniture, a New England chain, an American retailer that achieves some of the highest furniture sales productivity in the country by using themed “streets” within its stores, for eg:

• a Mardi Gras show,
• an IMAX 3-D theater,
• a laser light show,
• food courts,
• a city constructed of jellybeans,
• a motion-simulation ride,
• a water show,
• a trapeze school, and
• special charity events.

We cross the Atlantic and land on the romantic streets of Paris, here, another retailer dazzles us with its humungous 43 metre high domed ceiling in a heritage architectural landmark site.

Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann is the flagship store of the upmarket chain of departmental stores in France. The architecture of the store is art nouveau, with a remarkable dome and a panoramic view of Paris that has made it a tourist attraction of Paris.

Inaugurated in 1912 it is a 70,000 m2 store. The store offers fashion, food, cultural exhibitions from time to time, events such as fashion shows and services such as personal shopper, VIP services include the ordering of limousines or package deliveries to hotels. Known for its signature style of suspended Christmas trees, Galeries Lafayette offers you luxury and fine fashion in a shoppers paradise.

The Grand Bazaar at Istanbul is often regarded as one of the first shopping malls of the world.

It is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops and 250,000 to 400,000 visitors daily.

Seeped in history, the bazaar was constructed in 1455 and achieved its final shape at the beginning of the 17th century. The enormous extent of the Ottoman Empire in three continents, and the total control of road communications between Asia and Europe, rendered the Bazaar and the surrounding hans or caravan serais the hub of the Mediterranean trade. According to several European travellers, at that time, and until the first half of the 19th century, the market was unrivalled in Europe with regards to the abundance, variety and quality of the goods on sale.

In present time, the Grand Bazaar merchants have also anticipated the needs and concerns of the tourist trade. The food stores advertise Iranian caviar ready to travel home with you in your checked luggage-sealed in dry-ice packages to ensure complete confidence in your purchase.

The skinny lanes of Khan Al Khalili in Cairo, Egypt are basically a medieval-style mall. This agglomeration of shops – many arranged around small courtyards – stock everything from soap powder to semiprecious stones, not to mention tacky toy camels and alabaster pyramids. The bazaar is loud, crowded, colorful, and exciting—full of all kinds of goods and shiny baubles.

Cairenes have plied their trades here since the khan was built in the 14th century, and parts of the market, such as the gold district, are still the first choice for thousands of locals.

This market also dates back to the 14th century when Emir Dajaharks Al-Khalili built a large market complex on the site of the Za’afran Tomb, which had been the burial place of the Fatimid rulers of Egypt. This construction was part of the process of rebuilding started under Sultan Barquq (ruled 1382-1399) to help the city recover from the ravages of the Black Death throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. Today the market has been modernized significantly, but there are still portions that display the original Mamluk style architecture, which featured great archways and vaulted ceilings.