I know this may be funny but I keep thinking about departments such as: Sears, J C Penny's, Belk, Kmart, and Walmart. (I consider Kmart and Walmart department stores because they have different departments in their stores).
  It seems like most department are not as something like they use to be. Do anybody agree or disagree? And I know more than likely you are thinking what is that somethiing.

In the olden days it appears that department store came in two forms- Upscale Department: Sears, JCPenny, ect and - Variety stores: Woolworths, Newberries, ect. Today the scale seems to be broken into Variety (Dollar), Discount (WalMart-KMart,ect) , and Home\Clothing Stores like JC Penny, Sears,and Kohls. Target is one of the few stores that impress me on how the old upscale department stores used to be, although I was really born too late to know.

Current Department Store Categories:

Very Upscale-
Neiman-Marcus
Saks Fifth Avenue
Barney's New York

Lower Upscale-
Bloomingdale's
Nordstrom
Parisian
Von Maur
Boscov's

Upper Midscale-
Macy's (Abraham and Strauss, Marshall Field's, Robbinson's, Hecht's, Filene's, Bamberger's, Strawbridge's, etc.)
Some sections of Bon-Ton, etc.

Lower Midscale-
Some sections of Bon-Ton, etc., and various Southern department stores
Carson Pirie Scott
JCPenney
Sears

Downscale-
Walmart
K-Mart

Scalebreakers-
Kohl's
Marshall's
Target

Alot of department stores have closed, mostly local ones, or been taken over.

In Canada we have:

Sears
The Bay
Zellers
Wal-Mart
Canadian Tire
SAAN
Holt Renfrew

Discount stores:

Dollarama
Buck or Two
Winners

Closed for forever:

K-Mart
Eatons