25 Famous Stores That Don’t Exist in Boise, Idaho Anymore

It’s a shame that the kids growing up in the Boise area today will never know what it’s like to browse these stores! Some of these retailers are totally defunct. Others still exist but for one reason or another decided to leave our area.  

If you’re a ‘90s kid, online shopping has been around in one way, shape or form for most of your life. Amazon launched in 1994 as an online book retailer, but back then people still appreciate walking into a bookstore like Borders or Barnes & Noble and leaving with the book they wanted, the day they wanted it. 

eBay showed up the next year. As kids, we used it primarily for searching for those “rare” and “valuable” Beanie Babies that we just couldn’t find or afford. Our parents rarely agreed to make those outrageous purchases and in the long run, that’s probably a good thing. Shopping for Beanies online wouldn’t produce nearly the number of fun memories we have of running from Hallmark Store to Hallmark Store with mom looking for the newest ones. 

We’ve always trusted PayPal simply because it became the preferred method of payment for most eBay sellers. We remember our dad talking about PayPal all the time while he was buying hockey trading cards on the site. PayPal was launched in 1998. 

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It’s wild to think that we used to walk into a CompUSA store and leave with a computer that day. Today, we’re so used to getting online, picking the exact specs we want, and then waiting for a few days for it to arrive. 

And in many cases, that’s where things went wrong for many of these stores. As a population, we started to embrace the convenience of online shopping. Shipping times aren’t what they used to be. Neither are shipping prices. We don’t mind delaying gratification for two days and free shipping. 

If you dig deep enough you’ll see some of these stores weren’t quick to jump on eCommerce. Others failed because they were in major debt. Some just became obsolete as technology evolved. How many of these defunct Boise stores do you remember shopping at?