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Boucicaut,
Denny, and even Nordhoff never needed to cross paths to make a profit because
all three men engaged in ventures that supplied consumers with the goods they
either needed or were convinced by the sales pitch that they needed. Whether it
was lumber being exported to San Francisco or prefabricated clothing being
marked to middle class workers, the advent of the consumer culture found its
customer base and exploited them to the best of its ability. People's desire to
save money while shopping, look fashionable, and fit in with the rest of society
is a modest explanation for why any store modeled after The Bon Marché in Paris
could have easily thrived. Nordhoff's choice of Seattle turned out to be the
best-case scenario of "right place, right time." The Bon Marché found
an instant customer base in need of goods, developed a positive reputation, and
expanded as the city expanded to meet the needs of both locals and visitors. By
sticking to the model he saw working in Paris, Nordhoff and his successors
easily satisfied and retained their patrons. The Bon Marché kept prices
reasonable, brought in new lines of merchandise in new departments, appealed to
people of all classes, made people believe that they needed what they were being
sold, and ultimately sold the store itself as a staple of society the way a
politician sells oneself as the representative of the people's needs that can't
live without. The ultimate legacy of Seattle's Bon Marché is not simply that it
successfully replicated the world's first department store, but moreover that a
business had the ability to so effectively ingrain itself within a region's
society and culture that one cannot imagine what life would be like if it were
not the BONlife.
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