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"   Photo: Getty Images  If the main reason you avoid department stores in favor of smaller boutiques and online retail is because you simply can&amp;#039;t feel anything but overwhelmed in the face of hundreds of thousands of square feet worth of merchandise, then listen up: Today comes news that Harrods \u2013 home to over one million square feet of selling space broken up over 330 departments \u2013 is launching its own free iPhone app that includes an interactive store guide using GPS, meaning you can locate anything in the store, even yourself, in an instant. It will also feature menus to all 29 restaurants within the store, a link to their Twitter feed, history on the company, etc. Over at Macy&amp;#039;s, CEO Terry Lundgren just announced that shoppers can expect all Macy&amp;#039;s locations to be outfitted with free WiFi in the coming months. The retailer, which recently earned back its S&amp;amp;amp;P investment grade rating after two years, also announced the launch of their &amp;quot;Search and Send&amp;quot; program, which allows shoppers to order products from better-stocked Macy&amp;#039;s locations in other parts of the country in the event that their local store doesn&amp;#039;t carry something they want. It sounds a bit like shopping online, except in person, so we hope this points to a way around shipping charges for those willing to actually appear in-store. Finally, at Bloomingdale&amp;#039;s, those brave souls entering the dark world of Finding the Perfect Pair of Jeans may soon be able to aid their quest when the company finishes testing their radio-frequency identification technology, which will help to &amp;quot;more precisely stock and locate merchandise.&amp;quot; But will all these technologically-driven changes attract the new \u2013 and younger \u2013 shoppers these department stores want to wrangle into their stores? We suspect high-value designer collaborations, like Karl Lagerfeld for Macy&amp;#039;s, is the real ticket to getting shoppers to treat department stores as something other than a year-end fun stop. But will it ever trump the convenience of shopping online? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/shopping/news/a6534/the-future-of-department-stores-22040/>