Isn’t shopping for high end women an emotional experience, an outing of immersion and stimuli that is triggered by the mood for that day?
Making an appointment for the grocery store to pick up your grocery list is one thing, but isn’t the shopping for scarves and purses, outfits and accessories an indulgence experience for women that that doesn’t fit as pleasantly into scheduled in advance appointments, for instance the day they feel bloated?
It may be somewhat stereotypical but yes, in my experience, some women like to “shop” often without anything in particular in mind. Or maybe one thing they need, but enjoy browsing around and making an afternoon out of it.
Not all women of course. And not all women can afford to spend an afternoon browsing and impulse buying. But stores like Marshalls and TJMaxx are successful because they follow what they call a “treasure hunt” model. New stuff comes in all the time and it gets tucked away somewhere; and women spend considerable time going through the aisles looking at what’s new.
There probably is a market for “appointment only” stores. Sounds like it comes right out of the 1950’s; or for very upscale stores. But it’s not what one thinks of as Department Store which has a lot of square footage of inventory and it needs to turn.