Bon-Ton Department Store

One of those classic regional holdovers from the old department store days. The staff all seem to be disillusioned and indifferent. I stopped in and asked at one counter for an item I had bought there a couple of years ago, hoping to buy a replacement. No such luck. After a brief search the clerk told me to buy it online. I responded, at your web site? No, just somewhere online.
I do wonder how these places manage to stay in business.

I avoided this place because it sounded like a cheap discount store where clothes go to die. But it’s not. It’s a nice department store, comparable to Macy’s. Found some great winter gear to add to my east coast wardrobe.

I lived in the Lancaster area for a number of years and often found the options for shopping to be limited and frustrating. The Bön Ton became my store of choice over the years, especially after their renovation. Very nice ambiance, good selection of women’s clothing (for central PA), and excellent sale prices. Outstanding deals available on their «yellow dot» sale racks, especially in early January and early September.

It is a bit of a joke to call the Bön Ton a department store. Obviously they sell things other than clothing, but the employees don’t know anything about the products they’re selling. One employee told me at one point that she never received training on any of the products she sold from the Home Department but that the best advice was to just «read the label» if you needed to give someone information about a product. Clothing associates won’t know the difference between rayon and nylon– I know because I was one of them for a painful three months, and employees receive zero training on the products they’re selling.
I can’t speak to the women’s clothing, but the menswear is pretty limited. A few respectable brands of suits, Perry Ellis and Claiborne offer a couple of decent styles, Polo is way overpriced, and then you have the ordinary crap like Izod, Nike, Columbia, Nautica– generally overpriced nonsense. Men’s shoes are a joke– they sell the shoes but neither laces nor shoe polish (nor do they have a dedicated salesperson who knows a damn thing about shoes).
The newly renovated space on the inside is certainly more hospitable than the old one, but the new façade on the outside, complete with ornamental windows (I mean, what?), looks a little bit more like a neo-​Fascist rendition of some civic building in Novosibirsk, 1976, than like a shopping mall in Lancaster, PA, 2009.
I say «pricey» because nothing in this store is worth the price tag excepting select dresses, women’s and men’s accessories, and men’s suits. Employees are trained to push new credit card applications. Probably the last thing our economy needs, but the management doesn’t care.